Policy Hub
On 17 February 2010, the think tank Policy Exchange published a report which finds that the costs of treating patients suffering from cancer are set to increase to £24.72 billion over the next ten years.
The report notes that, despite a significant reduction in mortality since 1990, the UK’s rate still remains some 6% higher than the European average. Little progress has been made in closing the performance gap with other countries.
UK spending on cancer medicines is only about 60% of that recorded in other advanced European counties. Overall, England spends 5.6% of its public healthcare budget on cancer, compared to 7.7% in France, 9.2% in the U.S. and 9.6% in Germany.
The report argues that if survival rates could be improved in England to a level commensurate with the best in Europe, the savings – both in terms of lives and costs to society – would be huge. It finds that, on a cumulative basis, by 2020 total costs could be reduced by £10billion and 71,500 lives could be saved.