“Not fair, not right, and not on time.”
Patient advocate Georgi Welch nails the state of UK cancer treatment.
Georgi joined the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Radiotherapy and Radiotherapy UK for a roundtable earlier this month, with a wide range of radiotherapy experts from the frontline workforce, cancer alliances and research.
Together we educated visiting MPs on the power of radiotherapy, how it should be centred in the new national cancer plan, and the current state of play: where this life-saving, life-changing treatment is overlooked and underfunded.
The case for radiotherapy
Please advocate for radiotherapy and UK cancer patients, by submitting either the wording in the section below, or your own ideas and experience to the government’s public consultation for the new national cancer plan (HERE).
You can paste the information in the Explain your Answer part of the Treatment section in survey (500 words maximum). Deadline is April 29th.
Radiotherapy is needed by 1 in 2 cancer patients and contributes to 40% of cancer cures.
In 2021, just 35% of UK cancer patients received radiotherapy as their primary treatment, compared to the recommended 53%.
Lord Darzi’s independent report of the NHS highlighted that more than 30 per cent of patients are waiting longer than 31 days for radical radiotherapy.
- Modern radiotherapy is cost-effective at just £3,000 to £7,000 per patient.
- Replacing out-of-date radiotherapy machines with modern technology, could free up 87,000 additional cancer appointments every year.
- Modern radiotherapy machines, software, and AI-driven technology speed up treatment and improve accuracy, giving patients better outcomes and less late effects. We need systems and processes that allow for faster national implementation of these advances.
- Radiotherapy is delivered by a small and highly skilled workforce. This workforce has chronic shortages and urgently requires planned investment to attract and retain specialised staff. Tackling these issues should include robust workforce plans, paid for course-fees and bursaries to encourage more people into the profession, additional funding for dedicated apprenticeships, training places, and initiatives to retain highly skilled staff.
- The way radiotherapy is funded is not fit for purpose and discourages a joined-up approach to rolling out innovation and advances. With strong leadership and planning, funding reform could transform the cancer pathway and save money long-term.
- To realise the opportunity radiotherapy offers, we need a national radiotherapy strategy as part of the wider cancer plan. This strategy should be led and delivered by a team of clinical experts similar to the previous National Radiotherapy Advisory Group (NRAG), with power to deliver a systemic transformation to prioritise evidence-based, data-driven, equitable decision-making.
The new cancer plan must tackle these interlocking issues: to do so, it must be written by experts who understand the cancer pathway and the huge problems that arise when decisions are made without thinking about the whole picture. A clear example of this is the removal of funding for AI auto-contouring in radiotherapy, a decision which increases staff workloads and wait times for treatment.
Radiotherapy is a jigsaw
Advocates around the table spoke of the importance of getting it right for patients, by recognising the importance of each puzzle piece.
This included the need for:
- Improving the entire cancer pathway to improve survival, rather than selected targets.
- Judging success by outcomes, not inputs.
- Strong leadership and standards, with learning from the days of National Radiotherapy Advisory Group, when cancer care in the UK was improving.
- Reforming the radiotherapy tariff, which is not fit for purpose; and delivering a rolling fund to replace outdated machinery.
- Fair access to treatments like SGRT, which are more precise and don’t require patient tattoos.
- Cutting travel times and reducing carbon emissions through satellite centres.
- A national late-effects service.
- Investment and care in the workforce: without their skills there is no cancer pathway.
- Better national rollout of radiotherapy advances and technology. There’s little point knowing how to treat cancer if we don’t do it.
Radiotherapy roundtable
Georgi Welch was joined by: Keri Torney, Managing Director of Surrey and Sussex Cancer Alliance; Tim Cooper, Specialist Advisor in Radiotherapy and previous member of NRAG; Danny Hutton, Network Manager at North-West Radiotherapy Specialised Services Clinical Network; Spencer Goodman, Professional Officer for Radiotherapy at Society and College of Radiographers; David Kynaston, Industry representative for Radiotherapy4Life Taskforce; Dr Rob Chuter, Principal Clinical Scientist at The Christie NHS; Dr Samantha Bostock, Macmillan Radiotherapy Late Effects Lead Radiographer at Gloucestershire Hospitals; Lynsey Rice, Projects Manager for Radiotherapy UK; Professor Raj Jena, Data Science and Machine Learning in Radiotherapy; Professor Richard Amos, Associate Professor of Proton Therapy Physics; Professor Pat Price, Chair of Radiotherapy UK; Tim Farron MP, Chair of the APPGRT; and cross-party MPs.
Our thanks to all who attended, for the benefit of UK cancer patients.
Conclusion and next steps
Over the past decade, more than half a million patients have experienced unacceptable delays in receiving their cancer treatment. The UK is failing patients. With every four-week delay in cancer treatment, there is a 10% increase in mortality for some cancers.
A radical and sustainable National Cancer Plan, written by experts, could unlock the power of modern radiotherapy and improve survival rates for UK cancer patients.
Following the roundtable, a report of its findings will be sent to the Department of Health and Social Care, which has called for public submissions to shape the National Cancer Plan.
