“That is the life and death difference”: government aims to increase cancer patients’ survival rate to 75% under national cancer plan
The UK currently lags behind other developed countries in terms of cancer survival rates, but the government’s new plan aims to change this by 2035, the health secretary says.
The government today (4 February 2026) launched a new plan to improve survival rates of cancer in the UK.
The national cancer plan commits to ensuring three in four people diagnosed with cancer will be cancer-free five years after diagnosis from 2035 onwards. Currently, the survival rate is 60%; the new plan aims for a survival rate of 75%.
Wes Streeting, the health and social care secretary, told Stylist: “Today’s national cancer plan will take us from where we are today, which is lagging behind, to being once again world leading, making sure that cancer care across the country is no longer a lottery of life, and one in which we are more likely to lose in in Britain than elsewhere.”
The UK is lagging behind other coutries, including Australia and Denmark, in terms of cancer survival rates. The NHS has not met its central cancer performance target (that 85% of patients start treatment within 62 days of referral) since 2014.
It is vital that cancer cases are caught as early as possible to ensure the maximum likelihood of survival. Streeting himself was diagnosed with kidney cancer in 2021 and credits the early diagnosis for his survival.
Streeting said: “The reason why I’m alive today is because the NHS was there for me when I needed it. They caught my kidney cancer early. They treated it quickly and I’ve lived to tell the tale. Only last week, I lost a very good friend of mine, Nathaniel Dye, because he wasn’t diagnosed fast enough and he wasn’t treated quickly enough. That is the life and death difference between an NHS that’s there for us when we need it, and one that isn’t.”
Under this new plan, the NHS will commit to meeting cancer waiting time standards so that more patients receive faster treatment. The new plan will save over 320,000 lives throughout its duration, according to the government.
What will this plan look like?
As part of the plan, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) will focus on several areas. It will invest £2.3 billion to issue 9.5 million additional tests by 2029 which will lead to faster diagnostics. Diagnostic centres will also be open 12 hours a day every day of the week to ensure more testing can take place.
The DHSC will increase the number of robot-assisted surgery procedures from 70,000 to half a million. This aims to reduce surgery complications and free up hospital beds.
There will also be an increase in people with rarer cancers to be treated at specialist centres. Under new plans, more patients with rarer cancers will have their care reviewed and treated at specialist centres with surgeons, oncologists, specialist nurses and radiologists.
The plan will also offer genomic testing to those who could benefit from it. This is where a test analyses the DNA of a patient’s cancer cells and can help doctors determine which treatment will work best. New technology will also help patients by giving them better access to tests from different NHS organisations in the area. The aim of this is to also reduce wait times.
Streeting said that this plan will “be a game changer for so many cancer patients and will increase chances of survival”.
He added that this goes further than simply increasing performance rates or better numbers. “Behind every one of those statistics is a family, a story,” he said. “And I want more of those stories to have happy endings and fewer of those stories to be ones that are stricken with grief.”
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