PEOPLE are more likely to die prematurely from cancer in Liverpool than anywhere else in England.

The city’s local health profile for 2009 showed 164 under-75s per 100,000 die from cancer – compared to a national average of 116.

In the affluent London borough of Kensington and Chelsea, the rate is less than half Liverpool’s, at 79 per 100,000. There was a mixed picture across other Merseyside boroughs, with Sefton vastly improving its cancer death rates over the past 10 years.

Deaths due to smoking in Liverpool are also among the highest in England, at 329.4 per 100,000, as are hospital stays for alcohol-related harm.

Director of Public Health for Liverpool PCT, Dr Paula Grey, last night said there were no easy solutions to the city’s health problems.

But she insisted the picture was not all bad, stressing figures were improving. And she said the PCT was addressing many of the root causes of ill-health and cancer.

Dr Grey said: “A significant proportion of cancer deaths in Liverpool are due to lung cancer.

“It is a particularly difficult cancer to treat with a low survival rate.

“So the main focus has to be reducing smoking, which we have been doing – through active campaigning for the smoking ban, initiatives to stop children taking up the habit and offering support to those who want to give up.

“But this will not show in the results for another 10 years down the line.

“We also have to get people to present earlier to their GP if there is a problem.