Cancer Reform Strategy - NHS Cancer Screening Programmes

8 CANCER REFORM STRATEGY9. Excessive alcohol consumption is stronglylinked to an increased risk of several cancers. Totackle this, a programme of activity is plannedfor next year and beyond, including a sustainednational communications campaign to improvethe public’s knowledge of units of alcohol andensure everyone has the information they needto estimate how much they drink, targetedinformation and advice for people who drink atharmful levels and consultation on the need forlegislation regarding alcohol labelling.10. Skin cancer incidence is rising rapidly, almostcertainly reflecting patterns of behaviour overrecent decades. The government will expand theSunsmart campaign, which is aimed atpromoting behaviour change to prevent skincancer and raising awareness of the early signsof the disease. The Department of Health isreviewing options for regulation of the industryand as a first step will gather more informationabout the number and distribution of sunbedsand the scale of sunbed use by minors.11. Vaccination now presents a furtheropportunity in cancer prevention, specifically forcervical cancer. As announced in October, thegovernment is introducing a national vaccinationprogramme for young girls against the humanpapillomavirus. This will protect against thestrains of the virus which cause around sevenout of ten cases of cervical cancer.12. Given the importance of cancer prevention,PCTs and cancer networks should give highpriority to raising public awareness of cancer riskfactors.Diagnosing cancer earlier13. In general, the earlier a cancer can bediagnosed the greater the chance of a cure. Latediagnosis is the major factor contributing topoor cancer survival rates in this country.14. Screening is vital to diagnosing somecancers early. To improve and expand cancerscreening, the government will:– Build on progress on cervical cancerscreening, by reducing the variation ofcoverage between PCTs, informing womenof the result of their cervical screening testwithin two weeks of it being taken, usingnew technologies as and when the researchevidence supports this and tackling the fallingparticipation of women aged 25 to 35;– Extend breast screening to nine screeningrounds between 47 and 73 years, with aguarantee that women will have their firstscreening before the age of 50, facilitated bythe roll out of digital mammography;– Expand the NHS Bowel Cancer ScreeningProgramme from 2010 to invite men andwomen aged 70 to 75 to take part. By theend of 2010, decisions will be taken aboutpossible roll out to people in their 50s; and– Commission research on the feasibility of aUK trial of CT screening for lung cancer,working with the National Cancer ResearchInstitute.15. A new National Awareness and EarlyDiagnosis Initiative will coordinate a programmeof activity to support local interventions to raisepublic awareness of the signs and symptoms ofearly cancer and encourage people to seek helpsooner. This will include developing a tool formeasuring awareness levels and supporting highquality evaluations of pilot projects.16. We also want to understand more about thenature and extent of delays in cancer diagnosis.A national audit in primary care of newlydiagnosedcancers will be used to makedecisions about how best to provide moresupport to primary care professionals to ensurethe early diagnosis of cancer.Ensuring better treatment17. We need to build on the successes we havealready achieved in cancer treatment to ensurethat patients have fast access to high qualitytreatment for cancer, including surgery,radiotherapy and drug treatment.