What the new 10 Year Health Plan means for bowel cancer patients in England
Thursday 3 July 2025
Today, the Government has published its 10 Year Health Plan, following a consultation to shape the future of the NHS in England.
The plan has detailed several key changes that the Government want to make across the NHS, including moving away from:
- An analogue system to a digital one
- Care in hospitals to care in the community
- A system that treats sickness to one that prevents ill health
The broad reforms within the plan aim to deliver the government’s promise to stop rising waiting lists, deliver more convenient care, and tackle inequalities across the country through initiatives such as neighbourhood health service and the NHS app acting as a digital front door.
As part of this work, the Government has committed to reduce the number of lives lost to cancer through earlier diagnosis. Bowel cancer is the UK’s second biggest cancer killer, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Early diagnosis and timely treatment save lives – yet fewer than 4 in 10 people are diagnosed at the earliest stages.
To help meet this ambition the Government are today committing to
- Make cancer screening easier to access and more targeted, by using joined-up health records that include things like genetic risk and test results.
- Give all cancer patients the option of detailed genetic testing, including Lynch syndrome, to help guide their treatment and new blood tests that could help spot cancer earlier.
- Offer 10,000 cancer vaccines to patients in trials over the next five years and roll them out more widely if they prove effective.
- Test and introduce new ways of spotting cancer early, including using new technologies that can detect multiple types of cancer from a single test.
More detail will follow on some of these commitments in the upcoming national cancer plan, due to be published later this year.
Genevieve Edwards, Chief Executive at Bowel Cancer UK, says: “We welcome the initiatives contained in the 10 Year Health Plan, but it’s absolutely vital that its ambitions are properly resourced and funded so they give the best opportunity for our health service to thrive and deliver the high quality care that patients deserve.
“Initiatives including improving access to screening and genetic testing for inherited conditions including Lynch syndrome, will help people to be diagnosed earlier and receive the right treatment and care. We welcome the Governments acknowledgement of the importance of secondary prevention measures.
“We expect more detail on how this will be implemented and the impact for bowel cancer patients in the upcoming cancer plan. Tackling challenges such as long waiting times for diagnostic tests due to staff shortages will be needed to deliver lasting improvements for patients.
“We’ll continue to monitor how these reforms will impact patients and work with the government and people affected by bowel cancer to shape the upcoming cancer plan, pressing for the funding and recourses to truly meet the needs of patients.”
- Learn more about our policy and campaigning work
- Become a campaign supporter to help lead the change and improve early diagnosis of bowel cancer
- Find out more about the government's announcement of the National Cancer Plan for England
