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United Kingdom: Lung Cancer Country Profile

The United Kingdom performs strongly across all five of the domains, scoring ‘high’ throughout except for the first domain—

which examines lung cancer as a strategic priority—where it scores ‘moderately high’. The UK’s strong showing is due to having

comprehensive lung cancer clinical guidelines that incorporate fast tracking suspected lung cancer patients with time-frames for

diagnostic referral, rapid referral to treatment, good use of histological testing and availability of treatment and referral pathways

for supportive/palliative care. The reason for the slight dip in domain 1 is because the national cancer control plan does not

identify a funding source, the lung cancer clinical guidelines do not discuss screening, and there is no specific lung cancer control

plan. While scoring well overall, there are challenges in the UK, including the need for the guidelines to include the psychological

burden of lung cancer and a pathway for psychological support services. We discuss opportunities for improvement at the end of

this country profile.

The nations comprising the United Kingdom have taken a decentralised approach to addressing lung cancer in line with their

devolved health systems. This has reinforced discrepancies between what is happening in each nation. While Northern Ireland

once had the best 5-year survival rates for lung cancer in the UK, these rates have not kept pace with improvements seen

elsewhere. Wales has published its own Cancer Delivery Plans and has one focused on lung cancer. Scotland has a Cancer Strategy

that covers the patient’s whole journey from early detection onward and it is currently being reviewed. Building upon the success

of a pilot study in Manchester, published in March 2019, England has initiated an intervention targeting people at high risk for lung

cancer in ten sites..

Summary scorecard

Domain Austria Belgium Finland France Netherlands Norway Poland Romania Spain Sweden UK

Lung cancer

is a strategic

priority

MH

Lung cancer

is a public

health issue

H

Lung cancer

is a race

against time

H

Lung cancer

is at a

crossroads

H

Lung cancer

is a focus for

research

H

Key

Low Moderately low Moderate Moderately high High

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