Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play.
Ed Miliband: "Tobacco firms make soaring profits"
The Labour Party is to pledge that by 2020 no-one in England will wait more than a week for cancer tests and results if it wins the next election.
The party said the £750m cost would be covered by a levy on tobacco firms.
Labour leader Ed Miliband said it was "critical" to make improvements in the early diagnosis of cancer and that up to 10,000 lives a year could be saved.
But a Department of Health spokesman said Labour "simply can't be trusted to deliver improvements in cancer care".
There is currently a recommended six-week limit for diagnostic tests in England, including tests to diagnose cancer.
Latest figures show the number of people waiting longer than this is increasing.
End Quote Labour leader Ed MilibandThis is a plan paid for by money raised from the profits of the tobacco firms whose products have done so much to cause cancer in the first place"
Labour will say that within a week of being referred by their GP, a patient would have received both their tests and their results, meaning patients can start treatment sooner and suffer less anxiety while waiting for results,
Labour is also promising a one-week target for "all urgent diagnostics" - not just cancer - by 2025.
It would also launch "public awareness campaigns" to encourage people to visit their doctor and spot possible signs of cancer, introduce more training for GPs and consider new screening programmes for lung and ovarian cancer.
Mr Miliband is expected to say: "It is critical that we improve early diagnosis of cancer - a killer disease that one in three of us will get - so that we can match the best countries in the world for surviving it.
"And this is a plan paid for by money raised from the profits of the tobacco firms whose products have done so much to cause cancer in the first place."
In his party conference speech last month, Mr Miliband pledged an extra £2.5bn to, as he said, "save and transform the NHS".
But it was later claimed by its opponents that none of that funding would be available until halfway through the next parliament.
Labour says the cancer test guarantee is one of the priorities for the £2.5bn fund.
'Tough economic decisions'A DoH spokesman said: "Labour simply can't be trusted to deliver improvements in cancer care.
"They left us with some of the worst cancer survival rates in Europe, which we're now improving by referring record numbers of patients with a suspected cancer for treatment, delivering 10,000 more tests every day to diagnose more cancers earlier, and giving people access to the most advanced new drugs, all of which reduces the impact of this disease on patients and their families.
"Already in this parliament, we have invested an extra £750 million to improve early diagnosis and cancer care, but can only do that because we are taking the tough economic decisions that allow us to fund the NHS properly - decisions that Labour have opposed at every stage."
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt told the Conservative Party conference the government had "transformed cancer diagnosis", saying "so far this parliament we have treated nearly three quarters of a million more people for cancer than [during] the last one".
Earlier this year the Welsh government announced a pilot system to monitor cancer treatment times in order to ascertain whether or not patients receive timely care.
Meanwhile in Scotland, waiting times for cancer treatment have improved but nine of the country's health boards failed to meet a key target for cancer treatment times.
Medical experts recently warned that cancer services in Northern Ireland were under pressure, with treatment waiting times increasing.
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
Labour pledges cancer test wait cut
Dengan url
http://sarapanoatmeal.blogspot.com/2014/10/labour-pledges-cancer-test-wait-cut.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
Labour pledges cancer test wait cut
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
Labour pledges cancer test wait cut
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar