One person a minute will be diagnosed with cancer by 2040, charity warns

One person a minute will be diagnosed with cancer by 2040, a leading charity has warned.

Currently about 420,000 people are diagnosed with cancer each year in Britain, but this will rise by a fifth to 505,000, Cancer Research UK has predicted.

Deaths would also rise by almost a fifth, from 176,376 to 208,022.

The charity’s chief executive warned that the UK risks losing its position as a research superpower on the disease and there could be a £1 billion funding gap.

Michelle Mitchell said investment was failing to keep pace with the increasing burden.

She told The Times: “We are at an inflection point. There are worrying signs on the horizon. And now is the time to act to retain a globally leading position over the future decades.

We are in danger of losing ground

“To be competitive, to have a globally leading position, more needs to be done. We’re in danger of losing ground.”

She said the impact of Brexit, disruption to clinical trials caused by the pandemic and a lack of funding compared with counterparts such as in the US, had meant it was “getting much harder to attract talent to the UK”.

About two thirds of publicly funded British cancer research was supported by charities in 2019, equating to around £400 million.

Dr Owen Jackson, director of policy at Cancer Research, told the newspaper a difficult few years were in store due to the “inflationary period”.

He added: “As a charity, we are hit by this in two ways. We’re hit because as an investor in research our spending goes less far. We’re hit because we spend money that is given to us by the general public and they are going through a cost of living crisis.”

The charity’s analysis suggests if its fundraising income remains flat, it will hit a £1 billion shortfall within the decade, even if the Government increased its funding to match price rises.

Research and the life sciences are crucial

Ms Mitchell said: “It doesn’t seem a sensible strategy to be so dependent on charities who have to go out and raise their money every single year.”

The Government has an ambition to make the country “smoke free” with a new ban to stop young people smoking and to reduce the proportion of adults who smoke to fewer than 5 per cent by 2030.

Cancer Research said reducing this, and curbing excessive drinking and bad diets among middle-aged adults would prevent thousands of cases each year, reaching as many as 14,500 by 2040.

Ms Mitchell added: “The public are watching very closely to see whether there’s going to be a clear strategy, a robust leadership, a proper plan with some funding to ensure that we’re world-leading, not world-lagging, in cancer survival. It’s not good enough at the moment.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “Research and the life sciences are crucial in the fight against cancer, which is why we invest £1 billion per year through the National Institute for Health and Care Research.

“We have also secured new partnerships with BioNTech and Moderna which will enable patients in the NHS to be the first in the world to benefit from potential cancer vaccines.”