What does the National Cancer Plan mean for the bowel cancer community?

Following the publication of the National Cancer Plan for England, our team breaks down exactly what it is and what it means for the bowel cancer community.

What’s in the Plan and why is it important?

The National Cancer Plan presents a once in a decade opportunity for the Government to address barriers to early diagnosis, improve outcomes for bowel cancer patients, and achieve a shared ambition to reduce cancer deaths. This is key to making sure our community’s needs are met. The Plan builds on the reforms set out in the 10 Year Health Plan, which committed to reducing the number of lives lost to cancer through earlier diagnosis, as well as three wider ambitions to reform the NHS. These were to shift the NHS from sickness to prevention, from hospital to community and from analogue to digital technology.

What did we want to see in the National Cancer Plan?

We submitted evidence to the Government last year after speaking to patients and clinical experts on what we felt should be included, which you can read here. Our main priorities put forward were to: 

• prevent more bowel cancers by improving the screening programme
• expand the use of the faecal immunochemical testing (FIT) and so see more bowel cancers diagnosed earlier 
• reduce the number of bowel cancers diagnosed in emergency settings (like A&E), where bowel cancer has oftern progressed to a later stage and so is harder to treat 

What's in the Plan for bowel cancer patients?

We welcomed several key ambitions in the Plan, including: 

• proposals to meet the Cancer Waiting Time standards by the end of this Parliament (which is 2029) 
• a target that by 2035, three in four people diagnosed with cancer will be cancer-free or living well with cancer after five years 
• a commitment to improve the quality of life for people living with cancer.

As well as these, we were pleased that just ahead of the Plan being published the UK Government also confirmed it would be lowering the threshold at which home-screening kits for bowel cancer would trigger a referral for further testing. This will be fully rolled out by 2028, bringing England into line with Scotland and Wales.

It's also good to see the plan highlight the success of the Lynch syndrome transformation programme, which has dramatically improved testing for people diagnosed with bowel cancer. Lynch syndrome is an inherited condition that can increase someone’s risk of developing bowel cancer by up to 80%, yet only around 5% of people in the UK have been identified with it. Testing for and managing hereditary bowel cancer, such as Lynch syndrome, will be essential for early detection, surveillance and prevention going forward.

What wasn't in the Plan? 

It was disappointing that the focus on emergency diagnosis was only in reference to rarer cancers. Around  1 in 4 bowel cancer patients in the UK are diagnosed in emergency settings like A&E, often at a later stage with fewer treatment options. Our patient insight report, launched in January this year, shows just how essential it is to stop people being diagnosed as an emergency. We hope to work closely with the Government and our community to address this issue. 

What about the rest of the UK? 

Health is managed separately by the nations of the UK. At the time of writing, here is the status on the equivalents to the National Cancer Plan for England in the other nations.

Scotland: In 2023, the Scottish Government announced their National Cancer strategy 2023 to 2033, which sets out their vision for the next 10 years to improve survival rates.  

Northern Ireland: In 2022, the Cancer Strategy for Northern Ireland and its Funding Plan 2022-2032 was launched to set the direction of travel for the next ten years.  

Wales: Currently, Wales is the only UK nation without a long-term cancer plan. We’re working with the Wales Cancer Alliance to call for a long-term, strategic approach to planning cancer services as short-term plans and initiatives have not provided the scale of improvements patients need in Wales. 

What's next?

Overall, the Plan is a welcome step in the right direction. However, to be successful for our community it needs investment in the cancer workforce, and leadership at a national and local level to push the changes through that we desperately need to see. This must include new training opportunities and work to encourage more clinicians into specialist roles, especially in areas where people face stark inequalities. The Government has committed to publishing its Plans in England for the NHS workforce and we hope this will help address these gaps. 

We're committed to continue to work with our community and those across the sector, as well as the Government, parliamentarians and others to monitor the Plan’s progress and help deliver on its ambitions.

• Read our patient insight report

• Learn more about bowel cancer screening
• Find out more about our campaigning work