Growing numbers of poorer people are being diagnosed early with lung cancer after the NHS began on-the-spot chest screening in the back of trucks at supermarkets and health centres.
Lung cancer is the third most common cancer in the UK and also the country’s biggest cancer killer, claiming 34,800 lives a year or 95 a day.
It is a stark illustration of health inequalities. People in deprived communities have historically been less likely to be diagnosed at an early stage, and so more likely to die sooner, than those in richer areas.
But NHS England’s decision in 2018 to take lung cancer screening directly into poorer neighbourhoods appears to be paying dividends. The proportion of people in the most deprived 20% of England’s population who are diagnosed with the disease at stage one or two, when it is much more treatable, has risen from 30% and then to 34.5% last year, figures show.
Trucks offering “lung MOTs” were first deployed in supermarket carparks in deprived parts of England with the lowest lung cancer survival rates, such as Hull, Blackpool and Doncaster, and were later expanded to Manchester and Liverpool.
Current and former smokers were offered immediate and quick scans of their lungs.
Dame Cally Palmer, NHS England’s national director for cancer, said the findings were “incredibly important” and showed what could be achieved by persuading certain groups to have checks.
“They show the power behind targeted health programmes, with the NHS continuing its drive to detect cancers earlier by going into the heart of communities that may be less likely to come forward,” she said.
“While early diagnosis rates for cancer have traditionally been lower for deprived groups … the rollout of lung trucks has turned a huge corner and is now finding and treating those who would otherwise have been undetected.”
Lung trucks operate at 43 sites in England. The UK national screening committee last year recommended that lung cancer screening be rolled out everywhere.
Prompted by the positive results seen so far, NHS England and the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation are launching a campaign using social media and posters in areas where trucks are operating to encourage those invited for a checkup to attend their appointment.
Paula Chadwick, the chief executive of the Roy Castle foundation, said: “These checks are allowing us to get ahead of lung cancer for the first time, catching the disease at the earliest opportunity, often before symptoms even start and treating it with an aim to cure.”
