We are living in a time of great opportunity in cancer care. Scientific progress has transformed our ability to diagnose and treat cancer, enabling many people who receive a diagnosis to lead longer, healthier and more active lives, often being “cured” of the disease.
We will squander this opportunity, however, unless we ensure that cancer services have the capacity to deliver cancer care effectively to those who need it, when they need it. Cancer waiting times — a reasonable barometer of the capacity challenges facing services — have not been met for nearly a decade. With cancer outcomes in England already poorer than in other countries, the challenge is significant.
Despite fantastic technological advances, cancer care is — and will remain — a fundamentally a
