More specialist nurses key to making 'ambitious' lung cancer goal 'achievable'
Click HERE to see an article about the 25 by 25 report, published by the UK Lung Cancer Coalition (UKLCC) which has an ambitious goal of boosting five-year lung cancer survival rates to 25% by 2025.
The report calls for all lung cancer patients to have access to a specialist nurse to help achieve a major improvement in survival rates.
The new report ’25 by 25: a ten-year strategy to improve lung cancer survival rates’, provides invaluable insights from both patients and health care professionals (HCPs) regarding the perceived barriers to five-year survival - and sets out 20 key recommendations on how to overcome them.
According to the report, nearly two-thirds (65 per cent) of HCPs respondents in a UKLCC survey, believe early-stage diagnosis to be the most important factor for improving five-year survival rates - yet only 27 per cent of patients questioned said they visited their doctor because they recognised the signs and symptoms of lung cancer. In addition, 84 per cent of HCPs believe regional inequalities in health and care services have a significant impact on lung cancer survival rates across the UK.
In order to deliver the UKLCC’s ‘25 by 25’ ambition, the report calls for a number of key actions, which include:-
- Governments across the UK to prioritise the improvement of lung cancer survival in any future plans or strategies relevant to the delivery of broader health, respiratory and/or cancer services
- The establishment of a UK-wide taskforce to achieve ‘25 by 25’ in line with European best practice
- The launch of pilot data programmes to assess and address the significant variation in five-year lung cancer survival across the UK
- The introduction of UK-wide screening for all at-risk groups, informed by the results of the NELSON lung cancer screening study, which are due in 2017
- The 62-day waiting time target to start cancer treatment has been breached consistently for the past two years: The UKLCC is calling for a comprehensive audit to improve cancer waiting times.
“This report breathes new energy and enthusiasm into a lung cancer community which recognises that there is much more work to do. A lung cancer diagnosis should not be a death sentence. We hope that government policy makers and health service professionals in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland can support the UKLCC’s ‘25 by 25’ ambition,” says Mr Richard Steyn, Chair of the UKLCC, and Consultant Thoracic Surgeon and Associate Medical Director, Surgery, Heart of England NHS Foundation Trust.