FactCheck: less cancer with Labour?

The background

This week, the government announced its new Cancer Reform Strategy. The plan promised an extra £370 million to tackle Britain's second biggest killer by 2010. It would focus on both prevention and speedier diagnosis and treatment.

It builds on the NHS Cancer Plan: a comprehensive strategy aimed at beating the disease which the government set out in 2000.

In parliament today, the prime minister responded to a question from a Scottish MP on investment in cancer services, claiming that Labour's cash boost since coming to power had cut the disease by 16 per cent.

He has made similar claims about the party's cancer record in PMQs before. In October he said Labour's targets had led to a 17 per cent cut in cancer.

But this kind of cause and effect relationship can be tricky to draw from statistics, especially given the range of lifestyle and social factors which can contribute to cancer and the amount of time it can take to develop.

So what do Brown's cancer figures actually mean, and can Labour take all the credit for the impact on the nation's health?

The analysis

Let's look at the picture Labour inherited - and the state of the nation's health now.

Among the Department of Health's targets is the reduction of the death rate from cancer by at least 20 per cent in people under 75.

Figures are measured on three-yearly averages against a baseline of 1995-97, when the cancer death rate for under-75s in England was 141.2 deaths per 100,000 people.

According to the Department's 2006 Autumn Performance Report, the 2003-05 average had fallen to 119.0 deaths per 100,000 - a fall of 15.7 per cent - or roughly 16 per cent.

It predicts that, if trends continue, the 20 per cent target would be met.

Sounds good, but what about the population as a whole? Cancer Research, which compiles an array of statistics based on Office of National Statistics data, puts the fall in the overall death rate at a more modest 11 per cent in the last 10 years.

Whichever figure you choose to take, it's worth pointing out that cases of cancer have increased during the same period.

Viewed in that light the number of people dying from the disease could be expected to go up rather than down. And Cancer Research points out that mortality figures are difficult to interpret over time - for example, an improvement in treatment (though not necessarily a cure) might mean that people live longer.

With that rider, let's look at how long has the death rate has been going down for.

It started to fall under Tory rule at the start of the Nineties. In fact, the mortality rate fell 8.2 per cent from the 1989 peak to 1996.

Viewed in this light, the 8.9 per cent fall in the eight-year period from 1998 to 2005 sounds slightly less impressive.

Another common way of measuring cancer progress is the five-year survival rate. This tracks the number of people who are still alive five years after diagnosis. How has Labour done on this basis?

A problem (bear with us - there always has to be a but, doesn't there?) with using this data to analyse government performance is that the timescale of the data means it takes a while - five years in fact - to really be able to measure the impact of things happening now.

Cancer Research says the sharpest rise in overall survival during the 30-year period between 1971 and 2001 has happened over the last 10 years.

During this time the 10-year survival for all cancers combined rose by nearly 11 per cent, from 35.4 per cent to 46.2 per cent.

This is attributed to factors such as quick diagnosis - something aimed at in Cancer Plan.

It's perhaps also worth remembering that difference in performance for different types of cancer. Five-year survival rates range from just 2.5 per cent for pancreatic cancer to 95 per cent for testicular cancer.

The verdict

Cancer Research says that Labour has performed well on cancer, although its figures - based on the whole population rather than just the under 75s - put the mortality rate reduction figure at 11 per cent rather than the 16 per cent claimed by the government.

This bodes well for Labour, but it doesn't necessarily prove that the fall in cancer is purely a result of its new investment.

FactCheck rating: 2

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Every time a FactCheck article is published we'll give it a rating from zero to five.

The lower end of the scale indicates that the claim in question largerly checks out, while the upper end of the scale suggests misrepresentation, exaggeration, a massaging of statistics and/or language.

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The sources

Prime Minister's Questions, 5 December 2007
Hansard, 24 October 2007
Department of Health Autumn Performance Report 2006
Cancer Reform Strategy
Figure 3.1: Age-standardised (European) incidence (exc NMSC) and mortality rates, all cancers, GB, 1975-2005, Cancer Research
Cancer Factcheck: Is Britain too Slow?

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