SCORES of Liverpool women are dying needlessly from breast cancer every year because their condition is diagnosed too late, a damning report revealed yesterday.
The city was found to have one of the worst survival rates anywhere in England – with almost 7% of women dead within one year of being told they have the condition.
Health experts believe the high death rate – the national average is 5% – is explained by a failure to diagnose the cancer early enough.
That failure, identified in a new report by the UK's cancer “tsar”, also contributed to Liverpool being given a "red light" for its high overall rates of cancer deaths.
Yesterday, Professor Mike Richards described such a performance as "unacceptable" and insisted poverty in parts of Liverpool offered no excuse.
The “tsar” said: "Class or affluence might be a factor, but it is only a factor. Parts of the North East of England, quite deprived areas, have good one-year survival rates.
"These delays in patients presenting with symptoms and cancer being diagnosed at a late stage inevitably cost lives. The situation is unacceptable."
Professor Richards said many people were "pretty poor" at recognising symptoms, but also criticised GPs who needed to "play safe" and refer more patients to hospitals.
He added: "There are particular variations in one-year survival rates and that's taken as a very good measure of whether people get diagnosed early or late."
