Pilot project successes

An average of 50% reduction in time to first appointment Radiology waiting time reduced by up to 60% Advanced booking for appointments for tests and treatment Better information for patients and carers

A team of experts has been examining innovations introduced under a new initiative called the Cancer Services Collaborative (CSC).

They found that the project has led to improvements in cancer care, which are now set to be introduced across the NHS from April.

The CSC is a national programme involving over 50 teams from nine cancer networks across the NHS.

It was established by the government and charged with redesigning cancer care in the National Health Service.

One in three

One in three people in the UK will develop cancer, and one in four will die from the disease. Survival rates in the UK lag behind those in the US and the rest of Europe.

Experts from the National Patients' Access Team were full of praise for changes introduced by the CSC.

Diagnostic tests which used to require three separate hospital visits can now be done in just one visit and booking care means patients are guaranteed a bed immediately when they go into hospital.

David Kerr, CSC national clinical chair, said: 'The report shows excellent progress over the first 12 months.

"We are already seeing a 50% reduction in delays and more than half of the projects are hitting booking targets, providing certainty and choice for patients.

"We also have up to 80% of projects already hitting long-term targets for the whole process, from initial referral to treatment, in eight weeks.

"Patients are being treated more quickly; they are being given choices about treatment dates and the certainty of a hospital bed should they need one."

New cash

Announcing new cash for stomach, oesophageal and pancreatic cancer, Mr Milburn said the diseases killed a combined total of 18,000 people a year.

He admitted that the service for these patients was too fragmented.

How can it possibly be that in Birmingham you wait eight weeks to get the result of a biopsy for bowel cancer?

Professor Gordon McVie, Cancer Research Campaign

Mr Milburn said: "We need the investment going in making sure that we have got the most up to date equipment, we have got more cancer doctor and more cancer nurses.

"But we have also got to have some reforms to the way that cancer care is delivered.

"There is a long way to go, but we are making some progress."

The Cancer Research Campaign (CRC) argues that more doctors are needed to improve cancer services in the UK.

It says many of the specialist centres still lacking consultants.

Professor Gordon McVie, CRC director general, welcomed the involvement of doctors and managers in setting policy on cancer.

But he said: "One thing this has done is to reveal just how bad a mess we were in.

"How can it possibly be that in Birmingham you wait eight weeks to get the result of a biopsy for bowel cancer?

"No other place in Europe or America would accept that."

Professor McVie warned that even if best practice was adopted across the country, it would not be possible to save more than 10,000 lives each year.

He said the only way to save more people would be to invest heavily in cancer research.

"The present secretary of state gets alpha for effort, but gamma for speed."

At the Labour Party conference last year Mr Milburn promised that waiting times for all cancer treatment would be slashed to just one month by 2005 as part of the three-year NHS Cancer Plan.

By this year women with breast cancer will wait only a month between diagnosis and treatment.

It was also announced that by this year children with cancer, people with acute leukaemia and men with testicular cancer who are given an urgent referral by their GP will receive treatment within a month.

The plan admits that it will take until 2008 for access to treatment for all types of cancer to compare with the best in Europe.