A report on the NHS by 50 leading health experts and funded by Macmillan Cancer Relief includes some dramatic conclusions:
- Over 3 million people in Britain are likely to have cancer by 2025 (currently 270,000 per year).
- Cost of care will rocket; currently it takes 20 per cent of all NHS resources but treatment is likely to cost 1 million per patient on average by 2025. On top of this, new screening techniques will necessitate more preventative treatment for large numbers of the population. The report predicts that this could ’decimate the annual NHS budget’.
- Currently 98 per cent of research funding goes on drug treatments rather than prevention. These are expensive, ’lucrative’ and most hold a ’false promise of cure’.
- More people will have to pay for treatment leaving ’an underclass’ of cancer sufferers.
The report anticipates more government intervention, for example with bans on television advertising of crisps, soft drinks and sweets and even an increase on VAT on certain less desirable items.