There has been a revolution in cancer treatment in recent years: immunotherapy, precision medicine, and early detection technology have all turned it upside down.
But as the science accelerates globally Britain is lagging behind, because our systems are just too slow.
The detection to treatment gap, it's literally killing people!
As reporter Martha Gill has noted, the UK's biggest cancer problem isn't access to medication or lack of upgraded screening — it's the delay between noticing symptoms and starting treatment. The NHS's "62-day" cancer benchmark — the delay between GP urgent referral and first treatment — hasn't been met since 2015. In early this year, more than one in ten cancer patients waited over 104 days to begin treatment.
Every delay matters. Research shows that a four-week wait for cancer treatment equates to a 10% chance of death. When cancers are aggressive — and most are — those weeks can be the difference between curable and dead.
But here in Britain this happens all too often as patients are shuffled between various departments, specialists and hospitals in a relay race to a slow painful death in all too many cases.
Meanwhile in Denmark...
Gill mentions Denmark as a model to follow. There, cancer care is concentrated and managed fiercely.
There is a rapid process from detection to treatment and treatments tend to be done all in the same facility.
In Britain, by contrast, care is often too disjointed and hence the delays and too many people dying when these deaths could be prevented by a more streamlined system.
Final Thoughts
New drugs and discoveries always make the headlines, but it's time to face a more basic truth — sometimes it's a matter of moving faster, not thinking more.
Sources:
Martha Gill, The Observer, via The Week (6 September 2025)
The Lancet Oncology, "Impact of Treatment Delays on Cancer Survival" (2020)
It sounds like this is something we should emulate Denmark on, and maybe not others. A friend of my other half is going through cancer treatment and it does sound tough so you don't want to be waiting around. I have to say that I had to get something checked recently and they got me looked at pretty quickly. Happily it turned out to be nothing serious, but you do worry.
You would hope that people are looking to make the system more efficient. It is not always about lots more money.
There are for example treatments for Alzheimer and dementia, that are literally helping you to recover completely from the first stages, but they are not available in NHS because they are too expensive. You can still find them at private clinics, if you have the money.