People who fear they have cancer will be able to bypass their GP and refer themselves for tests, in an effort to save an extra 8,000 lives a year.
Other plans for speeding up diagnosis include lowering the bar for referrals and allowing family doctors to send patients straight for scans without them seeing a consultant first.
More than 60 hospitals in England will run pilot schemes aimed at improving cancer survival rates by catching the disease earlier.
Speeding up diagnosis: People who fear they have cancer will be able to bypass their GP and refer themselves for tests, in an effort to save an extra 8,000 lives a year
NHS England says that increasing the number of tumours caught early by even 10 per cent would save 8,000 lives a year.
Better diagnosis would also reduce pressure on A&E units, which currently spot up to a quarter of cases of the disease.
David Cameron said Britain ‘must never rest’ in its determination to beat cancer. Half of all cases are spotted at a late stage, when treatment is less likely to be successful, and survival rates are among the worst in Europe.
A new NHS cancer taskforce will evaluate seven schemes designed to speed up diagnosis, including self-referral for tests.
The proposal has been welcomed by radiologists, whose scans and X-rays are the first line of diagnosis for most cancers.
But they said any increase in testing must be matched with investment in staff. Lack of resources means many patients wait more than a month for the results of potentially vital X-rays, CT and MRI scans.
Giles Maskell, president of the Royal College of Radiologists, said early testing was key to saving lives, but added: ‘We are already seeing the system creaking at the seams. We definitely welcome the focus on early diagnosis but it has to come with investment.’
More than 60 hospitals in England will run pilot schemes aimed at improving cancer survival rates by catching the disease earlier
It is unlikely that those who self-refer will get direct access to tests, Dr Maskell said. Instead, it may be that those who are worried will go to a special clinic to be assessed.
Other ideas to be covered by pilot schemes include making it easier for patients to have multiple tests in the same place on the same day and encouraging pharmacists to refer repeat customers for tests.
The shake-up of cancer services also includes extra funding for a very precise form of radiotherapy that can be used to kill tumours which surgeons dare not cut out. Stereotactic ablative radiotherapy, or Cyberknife, has been championed by former England rugby captain Lawrence Dallaglio, whose mother died from cancer.
He said the £15million funding boost over three years will double the number of patients who can benefit from the treatment.
NHS England chief Simon Stevens said ‘too many patients are still being diagnosed late … so it’s time for a fresh look at how we can do even better’.
Cancer Research UK’s Harpal Kumar, head of the taskforce, said the charity predicts cases will increase by a third over the next 15 years, ‘so the time is right to set new ambitions and look at how we will meet this need’.
- The Cancer Drugs Fund is unethical and should be scrapped, the National Health Action Party claims. Co-leader Dr Clive Peedell said extra money for cancer drugs ‘undermines the fundamental NHS principle that all patients should be treated equally’.
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