Early diagnosis saves lives. Reducing the number of cancers diagnosed at a late stage means more people have more treatment options and substantially improved chances of survival.
We wanted the UK Government and the NHS in England to make sure that 95% of people receive their cancer test results within four weeks. This meant NHS England would need increased investment in diagnostic services to meet the growing demand including endoscopies, scans and other tests.
In September 2015, Cancer Research UK supporters and Campaign Ambassadors signed a petition to increase investment in early diagnosis. The petition received 24,600 signatures within six weeks and was handed into the Chancellor of the Exchequer at Number 11 Downing Street.
In November 2015, the Chancellor confirmed that the Department of Health would receive up to £300 million a year by 2020 to fund new diagnostic equipment and additional staff capacity to support faster cancer diagnosis in England.
In 2021, NHS England introduced the new Faster Diagnosis Standard, a new target for patients urgently referred with suspected cancer to receive their cancer diagnosis or all clear within 28 days, backing up our campaign commitment and pledges made in the 2015 Cancer Strategy for England.
In 2018, we launched our Shoulder to Shoulder Against Cancer campaign in the NHS’s 70th birthday year to ask the UK Government to train and employ more staff to diagnose and treat cancer early.
We explore how multi-cancer earlier detection tests could be used for cancer screening and what it will take to implement and evaluate them.
We published our manifesto for Cancer Research and Care – setting out our vision for how the UK Government can transform cancer research and care.
Our new report ‘Leading on Cancer’ sets out the evidence on the role that cancer control strategies can play in improving cancer outcomes.
Learn about the ways our campaigner community is driving political action to help beat cancer.
Join our community of over 50,000 online campaigners across the UK.
Take part in our community of over 200 volunteer Campaign Ambassadors helping to influence governments across the UK to take action on cancer and driving improvements for cancer in their local communities.
