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Policy

The National Cancer Plan

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The National Cancer Plan (NCP) consultation was announced earlier in the year and closed at the end of April 2025. Like the consultation for the NHS 10 Year Plan it has attracted enormous interest, not only from health organisations such as CancerWatch but also from other organisations interested in the fight against cancer, and from interested individuals. We are told that the consultation for the NCP has attracted some 11,000 submissions and will inform the nature of cancer services in England in future years.

The structure of the NCP submission was in the form of sections, covering key issues such as prevention and awareness; early diagnosis; treatment; living with cancer; research; and inequalities, with each section preceded by a dropdown menu with various choices asking you to identify your top three priorities for that subject. You were then given the opportunity to explain your answer in a limited number of words.

As a cancer prevention charity, not all the sections were relevant to CancerWatch. However, the sections that we felt were relevant, were prevention and awareness, early diagnosis (where we have an interest in screening), research and inequalities.

For CancerWatch, it is immensely encouraging that the first section in the consultation is awareness and prevention and the priorities that that suggests (as was the case of the NHS Change consultation earlier in the year). Although consultations tend to emphasise the NHS, the Dept of Health and Social Care who administer the consultation, has made it clear that the outcome of the consultation will also be used to inform the future of public health, for which they are also responsible. We believe that is a huge step in the right direction for the battle against cancer in this country.

With respect to our submission on the section on prevention and awareness, unsurprisingly we chose smoking, obesity and alcohol as the key problems in the drop down menu to be addressed. In the opportunity to explain our answer we also commented on viruses, UV rays and chemicals in the workplace as opportunities for preventing cancer. We believe that the link between alcohol and cancer is one that deserves much greater attention and awareness. As such, we have taken this opportunity to encourage the government to legislate for compulsory health warnings on bottles of alcohol, which is our main campaign this summer.

With respect to the section on early diagnosis, we took the opportunity to recommend increases in symptoms awareness, and advances in diagnostic test access and capacity. With respect to screening, there have been advances in lung cancer and targeted screening for specific groups, all of which we applaud. As cancer is often a disease without symptoms, we recommended a greater emphasis to be placed on screening.

In the section on research, we made the point that there is plenty of research on how cancer can be prevented, but very little of the research is ever put into practice, not least because is requires legislation or regulation to carry out.

A particularly important section for CancerWatch was the section on inequalities. The most important drivers of health inequality (certainly in terms of life expectancy) are also the most important causes of preventable cancer. 50% of all inequalities in mortality between the richest and poorest in the UK are considered to be caused by smoking, with another 30% or so of these inequalities caused by obesity. This was revealed in the 2014 Marmot Report on public health. In our response to the NCP, we took the opportunity to highlight how little has been achieved in tackling these inequalities since.

Finally, although we felt all of the sections of the consultation were important, we believe it is a considerable step forward for the consultation to plan so much emphasis on prevention and awareness. The default position has always tended to be to emphasis treatment and “cure” with respect to cancer. We really do need to move beyond this. The real advance available to us now is the eradication of the 40% of all cancers that are considered preventable. That was what CancerWatch was set up to achieve.

Sector Review – Punching Below Our Weight – Cancer Prevention

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To commemorate World Cancer Day 4th February 2024, we are publishing our latest report “Punching Below Our Weight: A Review of the Cancer Charity Sector’s Attitudes to Cancer Prevention”, in which we review almost 50 organisations in the cancer charity sector for their attitudes to cancer prevention.

Although a widespread commitment to prevention exists among cancer charities, prevention is often outcompeted by other priorities, particularly by care and treatment issues that can be more immediately relevant to the beneficiaries. When charities do campaign on prevention, their work tends to focus on secondary prevention, by campaigning for improved detection of cancer, or primary prevention in the form of information and awareness-raising work to shape individual choices. Primordial prevention, which requires structural change at a societal level, rarely features.

From the perspective of individual charities, these choices are entirely understandable. However, our report sets out how we could develop a stronger approach to prevention in the sector. Based on the input we received from the sector, we propose three core elements for the sector’s policy approach on prevention:

a. Stronger emphasis on primordial prevention emphasising social and environmental conditions including regulatory and other legal changes

b. Continued emphasis on the need for improved public health and prevention services

c. Stronger focus on solutions that will modify commercial behaviours.

For more information on the results from this wide-ranging review, the links to the review itself and its executive summary are given below:

https://cancerwatchuk.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/PunchingBelowOurWeight_review.pdf

https://cancerwatchuk.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/ExecSummary_PunchingBelowOurWeightReview.pdf

What do cancer charities think about prevention?

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CancerWatch exists to campaign for improved cancer prevention, and we will take a major step forward when we achieve registration as a charity this year. From there, we will aim to build up our campaigning activity.

But what should that new activity look like? What work can we do that will not replicate what other charities are doing? What should be the top priorities that we campaign for? We have initial ideas about what the answers to those questions might be, but we don’t presume that we automatically know best. We want to have the best understanding we can of the policy challenges ahead, and the work of the wider sector, as we develop our work.

We are therefore reaching out to established cancer charities, public health campaigners and others, to ask for their input. How do they feel the UK is currently doing on cancer prevention? What’s the outlook for the future, and what are the priorities for improving it? We are approaching over 100 organisations and individuals, and asking them to complete our call for evidence.

To provide some context on the questions we’re asking, and why we have formed the views we have (so far), we have published this discussion paper. It expands on the themes we explored on our blog during Cancer Prevention Action Week, and outlines the need for improved cancer prevention. It suggests that a major policy shift is needed to create structural change, rather than encouraging healthier individual choices that not everyone can easily make. It also explores the role of the voluntary sector in securing previous changes such as the smoking ban, and asks what more it might be able to achieve in the future.

We will compile a full report of our findings, and publish it this autumn. Sign up to receive updates if you would like to be notified when it comes out.