We welcome the National Cancer Plan for England

We commend the UK Government for setting out an ambitious 10-year strategy with a strong focus on survival, innovation, and patient experience.

Yet the Plan misses a chance to put prevention front and centre, with stronger alcohol policy, breastfeeding protection, and a dedicated focus on the modifiable risk factors that drive cancer

A bold ambition on survival and care

We particularly welcome the Government’s bold target that 75% of people diagnosed with cancer from 2035 will be cancer-free or living well five years after diagnosis – a genuine step change in ambition. The Plan’s emphasis on earlier diagnosis, reducing emergency presentations, expanding evidence-based screening, and improving access to innovative treatments has the potential to deliver meaningful improvements for patients across England.

We also welcome commitments to improve patient experience and outcomes, including personalised care, better coordination, and stronger accountability for delivery through a reformed National Cancer Board.

Progress on prevention – but a missed opportunity to go further

We welcome the Plan’s commitments on cancer prevention, including action to crack down on the illegal use of sunbeds and harmful UV exposure, progress towards a smoke-free generation, and expanded access to HPV vaccination as part of the ambition to eliminate cervical cancer. These are important, evidence-based interventions that will prevent cancers and reduce future pressure on the health system.

However, prevention deserves greater prominence. New global evidence shows that up to four in ten cancers worldwide are linked to preventable causes. Tackling the lifestyle and environmental factors that increase cancer risk is one of the most effective and affordable ways to prevent cancer in the long term.

Crucially, modifiable risk factors are not evenly distributed. Tobacco use, harmful alcohol consumption, unhealthy diets and obesity disproportionately affect people in lower socio-economic groups, driving stark and persistent inequalities in cancer incidence, survival and mortality. Strong, population-level prevention policies are therefore essential not only to reduce cancer overall, but to narrow health inequalities and ensure the benefits of progress are shared fairly.

We believe the Plan would have benefitted from a dedicated chapter on prevention, helping to drive a necessary mindset shift and embed the principle that diet, alcohol, and breastfeeding policies are cancer policies.

Action on alcohol and breastfeeding is lacking

The Plan does not expansively build on the wider prevention measures announced in the Government’s 10 Year Health Plan, particularly in relation to alcohol policy. Alcohol remains a leading avoidable cause of cancer, yet the Plan does not commit to minimum unit pricing (MUP) or restrictions on alcohol advertising and marketing, including where it reaches children and young people – among the most effective and evidence-based tools for reducing population-level alcohol harm and cancer risk.

We also note the absence of strengthened action to protect breastfeeding, including full compliance with the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes. Breastfeeding reduces cancer risk for mothers and improves long-term health outcomes for children, and stronger implementation of the Code should form part of a comprehensive, life-course approach to cancer prevention.

Partnerships with food manufacturers must also be approached with caution, given past experience of policy dilution. Where voluntary approaches fall short, Government must not shy away from mandatory measures. Strong governance, transparency, and protection from undue commercial influence are essential to ensure prevention policies deliver for public health.

Biomedical innovation matters but it is not enough

We are pleased to see the Plan’s commitment to biomedical prevention, including continued rollout of the HPV vaccine, trials of preventative vaccines such as LungVax, and plans to accelerate uptake of GLP-1 medicines for those who clinically need them. These innovations are hugely important and represent real progress in reducing cancer risk and improving outcomes.

But vaccines and medicines alone are not sufficient. We must also tackle the environments that make us sick. We cannot continue to treat people only to send them back to the same food, alcohol, and physical environments that drove ill health in the first place. Population-level prevention policies remain essential to reducing cancer incidence at scale.

Crucially, prevention is not only about avoiding diagnosis. It also supports survival and quality of life, contributing directly to living well with and beyond cancer. Good nutrition, physical activity, and maintaining a healthy weight are fundamental to recovery, rehabilitation, and long-term wellbeing. Prevention and survivorship are not competing priorities – they are mutually reinforcing.

Digital innovation as a driver of prevention

We welcome the ambition to harness digital innovation through the NHS App. By 2028, the App will allow patients to manage screening invitations, appointments, treatment plans, and prehabilitation, with personalised prevention advice drawing on genomic, lifestyle, and wearable data.

This creates a major opportunity to establish the NHS App as a trusted, accessible source of cancer prevention information, supporting people to understand and act on behaviours that can influence cancer risk over their lifetime. We would welcome the opportunity to contribute evidence-based, tried and tested prevention resources, developed and evaluated for public audiences, to support this ambition and ensure alignment with the best available science.

Prehabilitation, rehabilitation and supportive oncology

We strongly welcome the Plan’s focus on prehabilitation, rehabilitation, and supportive oncology, including dietary and physical activity advice, psychological support, and acute oncology for those with more complex needs. The evidence is clear: these interventions improve treatment tolerance, recovery, and long-term outcomes. We believe the ambition should be for these services to be available to all patients, where appropriate, as standard.

Research and the cancer workforce

Research and the cancer workforce will be central to delivering the Plan’s ambitions. While we acknowledge the focus on accelerating clinical research and innovation, there is a clear opportunity to strengthen investment in cancer prevention research, including implementation research on modifiable risk factors. Healthcare professionals must also be supported with the time, training, and tools to deliver prevention, behaviour change, and survivorship support alongside treatment.

Children and young people

We welcome the Plan’s commitment to improving nutrition for children and young people undergoing cancer treatment in acute settings. Good nutrition is fundamental to treatment tolerance, recovery, and survival. We hope this approach will be extended to all patients, and that public procurement across health settings consistently meets the highest nutritional and sustainability standards through the upcoming NHS food standards review.

Matching survival ambition with prevention action

We welcome the ambition and scope of the National Cancer Plan. The integration of prehabilitation, rehabilitation, supportive oncology, digital innovation, and prevention advice into the cancer pathway is a significant step forward.

However, there remains a missed opportunity to embed prevention at the heart of the Plan, through stronger alcohol policy, breastfeeding protection, and a dedicated focus on the modifiable risk factors that drive cancer incidence.

A Plan that matches its ambition on survival with bold, population-level prevention action will reduce cancer incidence, improve outcomes, and deliver a financially sustainable cancer strategy for generations to come.

We stand ready to work with Government, healthcare professionals, and partners to help make this ambition a reality.

> Read the National Cancer Plan on the DHSC website