Experts blame the Tory-led Government’s NHS reorganisation for delays in improving services

Labour is today sounding the alarm over delays in key projects for cancer diagnosis and treatment uncovered in a series of Parliamentary questions.

The revelations come after cancer experts blamed the Tory-led Government’s NHS reorganisation for delays in improvements to cancer services and said it led to services ‘standing still’ for two to three years.

Ministerial responses to Labour questions revealed a variety of projects are off-track, including:

·         The roll-out of the new Bowel Scope screening programme, first announced by the Prime Minister on the Andrew Marr show in 2010, will not now be completed in 2015/16 as originally promised

·         Only one facility for Proton Beam Therapy will be open in 2018, rather than two being open in 2017, as the Government originally announced

·         The planned expansion of radiotherapy capacity underpinning the Government’s 2011 Cancer Strategy –12 more linacs, and average fractions per machine up to 8,700 – will not now be met.

Andy Burnham MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary, said:

“David Cameron made a slew of promises to cancer patients in the early days of this Government. The reality is that cancer care has got much worse on his watch and his NHS plan has failed.

“It is not right that thousands of people every year who could benefit from radiotherapy are missing out because the Government broke its promise on buying new machines. Cameron’s policy of giving radiotherapy lower priority than drugs has left thousands without the life-saving treatment they need.

“The NHS can’t take five more years of this Government. If cancer care continues on the same path in the next Parliament as it has in this, more people will be denied treatment in their hour of need.  Labour will invest £2.5 billion extra in the NHS each year and end this scandal, including guaranteeing cancer tests within one week and introducing a new Cancer Treatments Fund to ensure patients have access to the latest radiotherapy and surgery, as well as drugs.”