A LIVERPOOL charity last night slammed England’s lung cancer care in a new report.
The Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation (RCLCF) study found patient survival rates had barely changed since the 1970s.
The charity’s third “report card’ since 2007, released today, said patients across the country are receiving “insufficient” services.
It also criticised the lack of funding for lung cancer research and found many patients were falling victim to a postcode lottery of care.
Liverpool itself has some of the highest lung cancer death rates in the country, with 164.8 male smokers dying of disease per 100,000 people each year.
Dr Rosemary Gillespie, chief executive of the foundation, said: “We understand the current financial pressures on the government but the scale of the problem merits a much greater investment in lung cancer for all patients and their families.
“For the third year running, the Report Card has highlighted that lung cancer must remain a priority on the Government’s health agenda.
“While we are pleased to see some improvements in areas such as awareness raising, there is still much to be done.”
The Report Card is an assessment of the Government’s performance across key areas of lung cancer care.
Grades are awarded across eight categories including equity of care, patient survival and funding for research.
Charity chiefs said little had improved since 2007, but three categories did show some progress, including raising public awareness of the disease’s symptoms. It gave the Government the lowest score in the patient survival category, an F grade, after results showed that less than 30% of patients are alive one year after diagnosis, with this figure falling to only 10% after five years.
It also found differences in care across the country.
On average, only 54% of patients receive any kind of active treatment, such as chemotherapy, but the figure varies from 10%-80% depending across the UK.
The Report Card is based on the experiences of lung cancer patients and carers in the UK, setting out the targets which patients want to see achieved.
The categories were selected by patients and they also determined what level of care and services would constitute the various A-F grades.
