Cancer care: NHS reforms essential

NHS cancer services are in crisis as a result of a failure to deliver reform, a damning new report has found.

The hard-hitting study, conducted by two leading cancer specialists for the Reform think tank, says additional expenditure on cancer services is failing to provide value for money.

It warns that the failure to reform the NHS means that money is being wasted on "a burgeoning bureaucracy" rather than cancer care.

Over the last five years the NHS has invested nearly £2 billion in improving cancer services.

But the report finds that "poor value for money has been achieved for this huge investment".

"The national cancer plan is not delivering as hoped and there are no reasons for expecting any dramatic improvements in the future," say the authors.

Ministers are also criticised for changes to the funding flow in the NHS.

The report say the reforms have led several NHS agencies becoming involved in decisions on cancer.

"Some have little relevant expertise and many are overwhelmed. Cancer patients often live in poor health unnecessarily for long periods of time due to a lack of co-ordination of their care by overstretched treatment services," adds the report.

The study also warns of a rise in the number of administrative staff at a time of acute "professional staffing shortages" on the frontline.

The Department of Health’s target for 2005 – a wait of one month from diagnosis to first treatment – is, in the authors’ view, "impossible to achieve".

The study also warns that the budget for cancer drugs is set to soar and postcode prescribing is set to continue.

The report concludes: "In the future the prevalence of cancer will rise trebling the number of people living with cancer in Britain to three million at any one time. This will put further pressure on process and outcomes.

"Real improvement will not be achieved by simply giving more money to a burgeoning bureaucracy. It requires a serious commitment to reform."