Tens of thousands of cancer patients could die each year because the NHS will miss a target for early diagnosis, according to a report by MPs.
The health and social care committee warned that decades of improvement in cancer survival rates risk going into reverse due to staff shortages and disruption caused by the pandemic.
The government has pledged to increase the proportion of cancers diagnosed early — at stage 1 or 2 — to 75 per cent by 2028, saying this would help to save 55,000 lives a year. But the report found that progress towards this target was “inadequate” and, instead, the current early diagnosis rate of 54 per cent was expected to “remain static until 2028”.
It said: “This would mean 343,000
