Cancer patients' chance of surviving is better in Hackney than in Tower Hamlets

Cancer patients' chance of surviving is better in Hackney than in Tower Hamlets, a report shows.

Professor Mike Richards, who published the report, says it reveals that the NHS in England must get better at diagnosing cancers at an earlier stage if it is to continue to improve survival rates.

The cancer tzar wants more focus on one-year survival rates, an indication cancer is spotted at a treatable stage.

His report found huge disparity, with lung cancer sufferers in Kensington and Chelsea much more likely to live a year than those in Hackney or Tower Hamlets.

However, figures show that in Hackney, 5% more people survive a year with breast cancer than in Tower Hamlets.

5% more people in Hackney survive a year with lung cancer than in Tower Hamlets.

To date, the health service has used figures based on five-year survival.

One-year survival - that is surviving a year after cancer is first spotted - is key in regard to measuring early diagnosis because death before the one-year mark is likely to be due to the disease only being identified at a late stage.

Surviving to the five-year mark also requires early detection but other factors such as access to drugs and surgery become important too.

The NHS is on the brink of hitting its 2010 goal of reducing deaths at the five-year mark by a fifth, based on figures from the mid-1990s.

Harpal Kumar from Cancer Research UK told the BBC, "There is no excuse for such a big difference between different areas".

The recommendations by the cancer tsar were made in his second annual report following publication of the Cancer Reform Strategy in 2007.

The five-year plan promised an extra £370m to help improve care.

It has led to more screening, faster drug approval, extra training and more money for radiography equipment.

Professor Richards told the BBC's Today programme it was unclear why England was struggling with early diagnosis, but GPs needed to "play safe" and refer more patients to hospitals.

He said the public's awareness of cancer symptoms was "pretty poor" and people needed to seek help earlier, but the diagnosis disparity was not a rich-poor divide.

"Class or affluence might be a factor - but it is only a factor, parts of the north of England, quite deprived areas, actually have good one-year survival rates, so it is not the whole story," he said.

The full report is available in PDF format.