Influencing the National Cancer Plan
LEARN MORECancer is one of the leading causes of death in the UK and represents a significant challenge for the NHS – especially as treatment becomes more complex and varied. We will need to evolve our practice to accommodate these changes whilst preserving the quality of patient care.
The government’s announcement of a new National Cancer Plan was a welcome recognition of this challenge. We have been working closely with the NHS England (NHSE) team writing the Plan, sharing our thinking on some of the things the NHS could do to improve cancer care and patient outcomes. We have shared briefings with that team on two priority areas that we think could make a real difference:
- Embracing supportive oncology
- Reform of multidisciplinary team meetings (MDTMs)
- Planning for the rollout of innovative radiotherapies and SACT
Royal Colleges and their memberships should have an important role to play in shaping and implementing the Cancer Plan. Our members play a critical role in cancer care. You have expertise and experience to share, and the Plan will affect your daily lives. We hope that NHSE will include the proposals we have shared in the Plan.
Multidisciplinary team working and reforming multidisciplinary team meetings
Multidisciplinary team working will be increasingly essential as cancer care becomes more complex. Yet the NHS does not effectively enable and empower clinicians to work in this way. Multidisciplinary team meetings (MDTMs) are inefficient, expensive, and do not help to improve cancer care for many patients. They need to be overhauled. At their best, MDTMs could be spaces to rethink service design, drive quality improvement, and generate care plans for complex patient cases.
There is broad buy-in across the cancer care community for such reform. We developed this briefing in collaboration with the Royal College of Physicians, Royal College of Pathologists, Royal College of Nursing, and Association of Cancer Physicians. We strongly recommend that the National Cancer Plan commit to reform MDTMs, and we stand ready to help lead this change.
Innovation and commissioning – cutting-edge radiotherapy and SACT
Cutting-edge cancer treatments are being developed at a rapid rate. Many of them represent significant potential improvements to how we treat cancer. However, current commissioning and funding structures are inhibiting innovation and leading to unequal access to things like stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR) and molecular radiotherapy (MRT). Funding models are also not keeping pace with the rise in the number SACT treatments, which risks preventing promising drugs from being available via the NHS in a timely fashion.
As set out in our briefing, small changes to these systems and structures should help to address the barriers. The NHS 10-Year Plan committed to stepping up the specialist care the NHS can provide in dedicated centres. Approaches like SABR and MRT will be an important part of this shift.
Supportive oncology
Supportive Oncology is a multidisciplinary approach that manages the physical, psychological, and practical impacts to patients of cancer and its treatment. It is proven to improve quality of life, reduce emergency admissions, and increase survival. However, access to supportive oncology is a postcode lottery, with workforce shortages and a lack of national infrastructure holding back wider rollout.
In collaboration with the Association for Palliative Medicine and the UK Association of Supportive Care in Cancer, we developed a briefing that makes the case for serious investment in supportive oncology services. This is one of the most powerful ways the government could shift care from hospitals and into communities – one of its key ambitions for healthcare.
Last updated September 2025
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