Local MP, Mims Davies, welcomes rollout of national lung screening programme that will detect 9,000 more cancers a year at an early stage.
Local MP, Mims Davies, welcomes plans to introduce a national targeted lung cancer screening programme for people aged 55 to 74 who are at high risk of lung cancer in England, following a recommendation from the UK National Screening Committee.
Around 35,000 people die and 48,000 people are diagnosed with lung cancer each year. It has one of the lowest survival rates of all cancers. This is largely because lung cancer tends to be diagnosed at a late stage, when treatment is much less likely to be effective. When fully rolled out, this new national screening programme will detect around 9,000 more cancers year at an early stage.
As smoking causes 72% of lung cancers, the programme will use a history of smoking from GP records to identify the cohort eligible for screening. Current or former smokers aged 55 to under 75 years will have an initial assessment of their individual lung cancer risk. Anyone assessed as being at high risk will be referred to have a CT scan.
They will be re-invited for a further scan every 24 months, until they age out of the programme. Patients will also be signposted to smoking cessation services. The Targeted Lung Health Check programme is currently being run predominantly in deprived areas. Since its launch more than 2,000 people have been identified with cancer and crucially over three quarters were at an earlier stage - giving those patients a much better chance of survival.
The Government will now build on this existing programme, rolling it out nationally with £1 billion in funding over the next seven years. The national screening programme will reach 40% of the eligible population by March 2025 and 100% by March 2030.
Commenting, Mims Davies MP, said:
Identifying lung cancer early saves lives, and the expansion of the NHS’s targeted lung health check programme is another landmark step forward in our drive to find and treat more people living with this devastating disease at the earliest stage.
The NHS lung trucks programme is already delivering life-changing results, with people living in the most deprived areas now more likely to be diagnosed at an earlier stage, giving them a better chance of successful treatment.
As the NHS turns 75, we will not stop in our efforts to detect more cancers earlier, when they are easier to treat, and to find new and innovative ways to make it as easy as possible for those most at risk to get life-saving tests as part of their daily routines.
If you receive an invitation, please do take it up, and if you are worried about a possible symptom of cancer, please come forward to your GP - getting checked could save your life.
The programme could also help people improve their health and reduce their risk of cancer by encouraging the use of smoking cessation services.
During the initial phase almost 900,000 people were invited for checks, 375,000 risk assessments made and 200,000 scans were carried out.
More than 2,000 people were detected as having cancer, 76% at an earlier stage compared to 29% in 2019 outside of the programme.
Health and Social Care Secretary, Steve Barclay said:
Through our screening programme we are now seeing more diagnoses at stage 1 and stage 2 in the most deprived communities which is both a positive step and a practical example of how we are reducing health inequalities.
Rolling this out further will prolong lives by catching cancer earlier and reducing the levels of treatment required not just benefiting the patient but others waiting for treatment.
I am determined to combat cancer on all fronts through better prevention, detection, treatment and research.
