Britain is put to shame in cancer survival league

Cancer treatment in the UK is so poor that survival rates are on a par with Eastern Europe, a report will show today.

British patients fare little better than those in Poland, Slovenia and the Czech Republic - where health spending is two-thirds lower.

Our record was worse than that of every Western European country except Denmark.

Experts blamed NHS waste, drug rationing and a lack of cancer specialists for the shameful showing.

The study - the largest ever of its kind - compared the five-year survival rates of 2.7million adult cancer patients in 23 European countries.

They found that although survival rates in the UK had gone up to an average of 48 per cent for both sexes, much of Europe was well ahead.

At 53 per cent, the rate for British women was the lowest in Western Europe and only slightly better than the Polish, Slovenian and Czech figures of around 51 per cent.

Yet Poland spends just £400 on healthcare per person per year, compared with £1,270 in Britain.

Among men, 42 per cent of UK cancer patients are still alive after five years. That figure is slightly better than Eastern European rates but well behind the 47 per cent recorded in Italy, Austria and Belgium.

The research - carried out by an Italian team examining the years 1995 to 1999 - was published in Lancet Oncology.

An editorial in the journal said: "Survival for all cancers combined in the UK as a whole is not only below the European average, it is also noticeably similar to some Eastern European countries that spend less than one third of the UK's per capita health budget."

The editorial said the Government faced "challenging questions" about the provision of cancer services.

It added: "The answers are likely to lead to a fundamental reassessment of the ways in which the NHS operates, such as divorcing the NHS from political control."

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LibDem health spokesman Norman Lamb said: "It's pretty shocking that despite years of extra investment in the NHS our cancer survival rates are the same as countries in Eastern Europe, where much less is spent on healthcare.

"We are spending all this money but not getting the right results."

With some types of cancer, survival rates were shockingly low.

In England, 69.8 per cent of prostate cancer sufferers live longer than five years - compared with 84.9 per cent in Austria.

English ovarian cancer survival rates were the lowest in Europe at 30.3 per cent compared with Austria's 42.8 per cent.

The report's author, Franco Berrino, of Italy's national cancer institute, said countries that spent more on health tended to have better survival rates - except for the UK and Denmark.

A previous study has found that access to cancer drugs can have a major effect on survival rates.

Access was found to be lower in the UK than in other European countries largely due to rationing by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence.

Professor Richard Sullivan, of Cancer Research UK, said early diagnosis and treatment were crucial.

"Survival rates in the UK are going up - but at the same time other countries in Europe have gone up too," he added.

"The UK is still in second gear and what we need to do is change gear. We need to ensure that patients have access to the best surgery, radiotherapy and other treatments."

Tory health spokesman Andrew Lansley said: "The Labour Government's obsession with targets has sidelined important factors which improve overall cancer outcomes.

"The Government should allow health professionals to focus on five-year survival rates."

A spokesman for the Department of Health said: "There have been continued improvements in survival rates and waiting times for treatments - our cancer survival rates have doubled in the last 30 years. But we know we still have much to do."

• Scientists have developed a technique to make cancers light up when patients undergo scanning.

Chemists from Durham University said the fluorine compound they had invented made it easier to spot breast, prostate and liver cancers.