Cancer costs in UK set to rise to £24.72bn, thinktank warns
Cancer costs in UK set to rise to £24.72bn, thinktank warns
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Wednesday, 17, Feb 2010 11:50
By Sarah Garrod.
Cancer costs in the UK could increase from £18.33 billion a year to £24.72 billion a year over the next decade, a thinktank has warned.
In its report, Policy Exchange said the gap needed to be closed between the mortality rate from cancer in the UK compared to the rest of Europe; with the UK death rate currently six per cent higher.
The study, the Cost of Cancer, said the costs of cancer would rise in the next ten years. Researchers also found that despite a significant reduction in mortality since 1990, the UK's rate still remains higher than the European average, and "progress in closing the gap in performance with other countries has not been made".
Henry Featherstone, head of Policy Exchange's health unit and author of the report, said: "Cancer kills over one in four people in England, and is seen by the public as being the top disease priority for the NHS.
"The current cost of cancer - to say nothing of the human tragedy involved - are currently at a staggering £18.33 billion, and will only rise further."
The report found that UK spending on cancer medicines is only about 60 per cent of that recorded in other advanced European countries, and overall England spends 5.6 per cent of its public healthcare budget on cancer, compared to 7.7 per cent in France and 9.6 per cent in Germany.
The Policy Exchange study concluded: "If survival rates were improved in England to a level commensurate with the best in Europe, the savings - both in terms of lives and costs to society - would be huge. The report finds that on a cumulative basis by 2020, total costs could be reduced by £10 billion, and 71,500 lives could be saved."
Sarah Woolnough, Cancer Research UK's head of policy, said: "The cost of cancer will rise as the population ages and incidence increases, and as more people survive cancer. But this report is clear in showing that we can both improve cancer outcomes and reduce future costs if we diagnose cancer earlier. In particular tackling cancer outcomes in deprived communities and among older people, and adopting innovative new cancer treatments on the NHS quickly is vital.
"This report also highlights that if we are to improve our cancer outcomes to make them among the best in Europe, we need to deliver cancer services differently and keeping a focus on early diagnosis is crucial. We hope that current and future policymakers take the report's recommendations seriously."