Sir
Radiotherapy services: “Cruel failure of Cameron’s cancer pledge” – 2 March 2014
Radiotherapy services are in a much better place today compared to March 2013. However
there is a need for further investment in facilities and in the workforce if we are to deliver high
quality advanced radiotherapy services to all patients who require them in the UK.
The radiotherapy community was set an enormous task in late 2012 to deploy the £23m
allocated to the Radiotherapy Innovation Fund effectively and to achieve the commitment to
targets for delivering Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy across England. The timeframe of
less than six months was challenging. In that time the needs of each of the 50 radiotherapy
centres had to be assessed, the necessary facilities purchased, the appropriate workforce
trained, and the services to be in effective clinical use. This was a complex programme and for
anyone with experience of introducing change into a stretched healthcare system, it could be
judged as phenomenally successful. The fact that the targets were not fully met for another six
months is hardly surprising and should not be seen as a failure of this initiative.
The Vision for Radiotherapy issued by NHS England and Cancer Research UK on 3 March is
a major opportunity to address what still needs to be done. The Radiotherapy Board - a
UK-wide collaborative of the three major professions involved in the delivery of radiotherapy
(clinical oncologists, therapy radiographers and medical physicists) - stands ready to work
with all involved to make the vision a reality across the whole of the UK, not just in England.
There needs to be a major look at cancer services funding with such a disparity between the
annual funding for radiotherapy (£350 million) and the cancer drugs fund (more than £2 billion)
and the reasons justifying this enormous differential. As clinical oncologists deliver both
chemotherapy and radiotherapy to cancer patients, this is not about professional competition
between two non-surgical cancer treatments. It is a call for a realistic examination of the way
precious NHS resources are allocated.
Dr Diana Tait
Chair, the Radiotherapy Board
Consultant Clinical Oncologist