Cancer affects 1 in 2 people during their lifetime and record numbers of people are being diagnosed and treated in the UK. Data (published in November 2024) shows that over 3.1 million people were investigated for suspected cancer and 355,935 people received their first cancer treatment in the previous 12 months.
Therefore, cancer activity represents a significant proportion of overall NHS activity, so responding to this rising demand in a way which maximises use of resources and best suits the needs of the patient is vital to build an NHS which is fit for the future.
In July 2025, the government published the 10 Year Health Plan for England, outlining its approach to reform the NHS for the long term. It was also confirmed that a 10-year national plan for cancer will be developed to a later timescale.
Despite recent improvements in cancer waiting times, many cancer patients are waiting too long for a diagnosis and treatment. Lord Darzi’s independent investigation of the NHS in England has set out the scale of the challenges that the government faces in fixing the NHS, and the need to improve cancer waiting time performance and cancer survival.
Cancer survival in the UK is at the highest it has ever been and 10-year survival for all cancers combined has doubled since the early 1970s. However, survival and mortality rates are worse than in many other comparable countries and this has to change.
Early diagnosis remains critical for improving survival and is a priority for the NHS. Record improvements to early diagnosis have been led by the NHS’s early diagnosis programme. This includes the roll-out of the lung cancer screening programme (previously called targeted lung health checks), which has diagnosed more than 5,000 lung cancers, three-quarters of which are at an early stage.
The NHS's goal is to reduce the number of lives lost to cancer, in line with the government’s health mission goal to reduce lives lost to the biggest killers.
The national cancer plan will set out how we achieve this goal in line with the shifts and reforms set out by the 10 Year Health Plan. Budget constraints mean that these plans will need to ensure that every pound of taxpayers' money is spent as effectively as possible.
The national cancer plan will explain how the government and the NHS will:
People in Humber and North Yorkshire have already been given the opportunity to influence the development of the national 10-year plan for cancer, via a government call for evidence.
Guided by the framework of the national plan, a Humber and North Yorkshire plan for cancer will be developed to describe how the 10-year national plan for cancer will be implemented locally.
Humber and North Yorkshire Cancer Alliance is therefore seeking your views and ideas on the contents of the Humber and North Yorkshire plan for cancer in order to improve outcomes for people diagnosed with cancer in our region.
The survey includes questions on:
The insight gathered via this survey, along with the contents of the national 10-year plan for cancer (due to be published in autumn), will inform the development of the Humber and North Yorkshire plan for cancer.
We want to hear from: