Cancer patients missing out: Tories

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The Government target for 2010/11 is that 40,000 individual treatment sessions - fractions - are given per million population.

The Conservatives say the machines which give the treatment - linear accelerators - are only delivering 30,000, according to figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

This has barely increased since 2005, they said.

The Tories said 9,000 cancer patients missed out on treatment last year because the average number of fractions delivered by each linear accelerator per year does not meet 8,000, which was the figure put forward by the Government's advisory group on radiotherapy in May last year.

Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley said: "Radiotherapy is vital to fight cancer. If patients aren't getting the treatment they should be, then it's not surprising that cancer survival rates in this country lag behind European averages.

"Given the money and resources Labour have poured into cancer treatment, patients deserve better.

"As has happened all too often with this Government, they know exactly what they need to do to sort things out, but have dithered and delayed over taking action. Meanwhile, thousands of cancer sufferers are paying the price."

A Department of Health spokeswoman said: "Since 2000, the NHS has made significant increases in both workforce and equipment for radiotherapy and we expect the NHS to be delivering 40,000 fractions of treatment per million of population by 2010."