Cancer survival rates in Britain are among the lowest in Europe, according to the most comprehensive analysis of the issue yet produced.England is on a par with Poland despite the NHS spending three times more on health care.
Survival rates are based on the number of patients who are alive five years after diagnosis and researchers found that, for women, England was the fifth worst in a league of 22 countries. Scotland came bottom. Cancer experts blamed late diagnosis and long waiting lists.
In total, 52.7pc of women survived for five years after being diagnosed between 2000 and 2002. Only Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, the Czech Republic and Poland did worse. Just 44.8pc of men survived, putting England in the bottom seven countries.
The team, writing in The Lancet Oncology, found that Britain's survival rates for the most common cancers - colorectal, lung, breast and prostate - were substantially behind those in Western Europe. In England, the proportion of women with breast cancer who were alive five years after diagnosis was 77.8pc. Scotland (77.3pc) and Ireland (76.2pc) had a lower rate.
Rates for lung cancer in England were poor, with only 8.4pc of patients surviving - half the rate for Iceland (16.8pc). Only Scotland (8.2pc) and Malta (4.6pc) did worse.
Fewer women in England lived for five years after being diagnosed with cervical cancer (58.6pc) despite a national screening programme. This compared to 70.6pc in Iceland. Dr Franco Berrino, who led the study at the National Cancer Institute in Milan, said cancer care was improving in countries that recorded low survival figures. He added: "If all countries attained the mean survival (57pc) of Norway, Sweden and Finland, about 12pc fewer deaths would occur in the five years after diagnosis."
His co-researcher, Prof Ian Kunkler from the Western General Hospital in Edinburgh, said waiting lists for radiotherapy were partly to blame.
"Although there has been a substantial investment in radiotherapy facilities, there is still a shortfall," he said.
"We have good evidence that survival for lung cancer has been compromised by long waiting lists for radiotherapy treatment."
A second article, which looked at 2.7 million patients diagnosed between 1995 and 1999, found that countries that spent the most on health per capita per year had better survival rates.
Britain was the exception. Despite spending up to £1,500 on health per person per year, it recorded similar survival rates for Hodgkin's disease and lung cancer as Poland, which spends a third of that amount.
An accompanying editorial said the figures showed that the NHS Cancer Plan, published in 2000, was not working.
"Survival in England has only increased at a similar rate to other European countries and has not caught up with the absolute values seen elsewhere," it said.
Prof Richard Sullivan at Cancer Research UK said: "Cancer is still not being diagnosed early enough in all cases."
The United States on the top of the list? That's sure to be ignored by those promoting the virtues of socialised medicine.
4 comments:
I'm presuming that Michael Moore's "Sicko" didn't produce these stats....
What about Sweden (no 2 on your list) and it's almost completely socialised medical system... and what of Iceland and Finland which I believe also have similar systems.
Could be the high intake of omega-3 oils from fish are part of the reason for survival rates in Iceland, the biggest consumers of fish aside from Japanese.
Also, Sweden is just behind the US on this list, but you will find the US has to spend almost 1.5 times as much money (as % of GDP) on healthcare compared to Sweden.
So the Swedes are getting far better value for money from their healthcare system if they are getting almost equivalent survival rates.
"Sweden has an excellent national health system, which has consistently been ranked among the top healthcare systems in the world. There are more doctors per head in Sweden than in most other countries, and the government has traditionally invested vast sums of money in the health service.
Everyone living in Sweden, regardless of nationality, is entitled to medical care on the same basis as Swedish nationals. Relatively few people in Sweden have private health insurance, although this is gradually changing, with more private care facilities being introduced. Providers of national healthcare services are banned from also providing private medical care."
Also the tallest and generally healthiest nation in the world are the Dutch, who have also had a socialised general public health system.
In a nation of alcohol soaked yobbos like Australia, I think the general ignorance and stupidity of many people is far more of a factor in health outcomes.
Common sense dictates that the stats listed represent only those that received some medical treatment at the least. Otherwise they would have not been included. There are those that have died and never received diagnoses and/or treatment including in the borders of the US. This reduces the survival rates for all countries. Medicine is medicine. The hard fact is you either afford it through taxation, by affording insurance or by affording care directly. Anyway you go about it you personally spend income. Medical care should be relative in cost to the average wage in the area it is being provided. This would drive cost down across the board. Could it be that the value in living a long life has become less? That the cost of prolonging a life are being weighed against that lifes productivity? That global governments and economies do not want to bear the weight of the aged?(40 & up)That if you want to survive to a ripe old age you'll have to relinquish all of your income and savings to do so? So much for retiring. It would be far better to be taxed at a slightly higher rate with reduced medical costs and have all people covered with no qualifying than having to qualify with some measure of affordability. Medicine and medical care has gotten ridiculous. Especially with human animals trying to brainwash each other and themselves as to the creditability of the nature of the spending, out of pocket and into the bowels of an insurance company, out of pocket directly to the provider, or out of pocket to a government and then dispersed. It's definitely coming 'out of your pocket'. So start going to the library and reading up on staying healthy and putting it into practice and doing something with these computers that has a postive impact on your life other than having a life long debate about the creditability of the channels the money went through to get to the provider.
Common sense dictates that the stats listed represent only those that received some medical treatment at the least. Otherwise they would have not been included. There are those that have died and never received diagnoses and/or treatment including in the borders of the US. This reduces the survival rates for all countries. Medicine is medicine. The hard fact is you either afford it through taxation, by affording insurance or by affording care directly. Anyway you go about it you personally spend income. Medical care should be relative in cost to the average wage in the area it is being provided. This would drive cost down across the board. Could it be that the value in living a long life has become less? That the cost of prolonging a life are being weighed against that lifes productivity? That global governments and economies do not want to bear the weight of the aged?(40 & up)That if you want to survive to a ripe old age you'll have to relinquish all of your income and savings to do so? So much for retiring. It would be far better to be taxed at a slightly higher rate with reduced medical costs and have all people covered with no qualifying than having to qualify with some measure of affordability. Medicine and medical care has gotten ridiculous. Especially with human animals trying to brainwash each other and themselves as to the creditability of the nature of the spending, out of pocket and into the bowels of an insurance company, out of pocket directly to the provider, or out of pocket to a government and then dispersed. It's definitely coming 'out of your pocket'. So start going to the library and reading up on staying healthy and putting it into practice and doing something with these computers that has a postive impact on your life other than having a life long debate about the creditability of the channels the money went through to get to the provider.
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