Cancer death rates are 60% higher for people living in the most deprived areas of the UK compared with the least deprived, according to a new report by Cancer Research UK.
The report, called Cancer in the UK 2025: Socioeconomic deprivation, found that around 28,400 cancer deaths each year are linked to socioeconomic inequality, which is around three in 20 cancer deaths. The mortality rate across all cancers in the most deprived areas of the UK was 337 per 100,000, compared with 217 in the least deprived areas.
The research, which analysed Office of National Statistics (ONS) and NHS England data, also suggested that one in ten of all cancer diagnoses in the UK were linked to deprivation. It said this was ‘largely’ due to the higher prevalence of cancer risk factors such as smoking and obesity.
It added that those living in deprived areas had lower awareness of symptoms of cancer, meaning there were higher proportions of cancer cases being diagnosed at a later stage.
It was also noted that those living in deprived areas are more likely to experience longer waits from urgent referral to treatment.
The report said: ‘Diagnosing more cancers at an earlier stage in deprived areas is vital to closing the survival gap between the most and least deprived. To achieve this, we need to do more to improve symptom awareness, break down barriers to help seeking and support informed screening uptake.
‘There needs to be long-term funded commitments to a sustained programme of national campaigns matched with targeted communications to populations that face additional barriers to help-seeking.
‘There is clear evidence that people from deprived areas face poorer access to timely healthcare. Access to primary care needs to be strengthened and measures to encourage people to come forward must be backed up by sufficient resources in primary care and across the cancer pathway more broadly so that everyone can be seen, diagnosed and begin treatment as soon as possible.’
It added that reducing unwarranted variation was important but that the factors driving this were ‘incredibly complex’.
‘Therefore, governments and health systems need to take a strategic, evidence-led approach to addressing unwarranted variation in access to treatment,’ it said.
Dr Ian Walker, executive director of policy and information at Cancer Research UK said: ‘Beating cancer must mean beating it for everybody.’
‘No one should be at a greater risk of dying from this devastating disease simply because of where they live. These figures are shocking and unacceptable – but crucially, they’re avoidable.’
Earlier this month, NHS England announced that AI would be used to help detect breast cancer in 30 sites across the country as part of a trial to test how AI tools can help earlier diagnosis.
