Professor Peter Johnson, NHS England’s national clinical director for cancer, said: “Most symptoms will not be from cancer, but if they are, seeing someone quickly will give you the best chance of diagnosis at an earlier stage when cancers are easiest to treat.
”Figures published in May showed a third fewer cancers were detected at an early stage, when the chances of survival are highest.
The data, collected by Public Health England’s National Cancer Registration and Analysis Service, sparked fears that thousands of people have the disease but have not yet started treatment.
While 18,400 people in England had their cancer diagnosed at stage one between March and June 2019, this dropped by 33 percent to 12,400 in the same period last year – a fall of 1,500 people in a month.
