New cancer test for NHS

This should not be forgotten when watchdogs, like the National Audit Office, consider how services can be improved, particularly at a time when "tougher finances", according to its latest report, will coincide with newly-diagnosed cases increasing by 45,000 each year.

In short, hospitals will be expected to use the same amount of funding to treat even more sufferers while also maintaining the very high standards that patients, and their families, expect of the NHS at all times.

Many of these improvements stem from the 10-year cancer plan that was launched a decade ago by the last government. Though derided by Labour's opponents, it proved effective in concentrating minds.

The conundrum is that the shorter waiting times, and quicker diagnosis, were only achieved because Ministers did not stick to the spending plans that they outlined in 2000, and then in the follow-up Cancer Reform Strategy.

While this was not a huge issue when the economy is prospering, it is now, as hospital managers and NHS bureaucrats have to start justifying every last penny as they respond to the contraction of the public finances.

Of course, efficiencies can be achieved – and the NAO report is not short of practical advice. But, in doing so, Ministers need to be aware of two contradictions.

Firstly, every patient expects their treatment to be afforded priority status and there remain serious disparities in the levels of funding provided by NHS trusts.

Secondly, a patient's ability to get new drugs is still the subject of a postcode lottery that continues to distress sufferers when they are at their most vulnerable physically and emotionally.

As the NAO points out, improved communication would help address many of these fears. There's no reason why this approach cannot be implemented in the meantime. It has no cost implications and would help patients while NHS managers face up to the wider budgetary challenges.