NHS launches new drive to find more people with deadly pancreatic cancer
Hundreds of GP practices in England are being given extra funding to comb patient records looking for people with the disease, which has the lowest survival rate of all cancers.
GPs and their teams will look for people over 60 who may have signs of the cancer, such as a recent diagnosis of diabetes and sudden weight loss.
Figure suggest that around half of people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer have been diagnosed with type 1 or 2 diabetes recently.
Family doctors taking part in the NHS England pilot will then contact patients and send them for urgent blood tests and CT scans to rule cancer in or out.
Pancreatic cancer can have vague symptoms and is often diagnosed in the late stages.
According to researchers, newly-diagnosed diabetes patients often have similar symptoms as a person with early-stage pancreatic cancer.
This is because the cancer destroys the same insulin-producing cells that are also destroyed in diabetes.
Around 10,500 people in the UK are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer every year and only around one in 20 survive the disease for 10 years or more.
More than half of people die within three months of diagnosis.
For the new three-year pilot, more than 300 GP practices in England will be involved, with all practices up and running by the autumn.
Almost £2 million in targeted funding has been invested to help practices find people most at risk and give patients the best chance of being diagnosed early.
Professor Peter Johnson, NHS national clinical director for cancer, said: 'Pancreatic cancer is responsible for so many deaths because patients don't usually notice symptoms until the cancer is at an advanced stage, which is why we need to find new ways to pick it up.
'Through initiatives like this and the upcoming 10-year health plan, the NHS is determined to go a step further – not just treat people at an advanced stage but to go out into communities and seek people out who might be unwell without any symptoms so we can provide people with the most effective treatment.
'The NHS is seeing and treating more people with cancer than ever, and early diagnosis is key to ensure patients have the best chance of receiving effective treatment.
'If your GP practice identifies you as at risk of pancreatic cancer, I urge you to come forward for testing as soon as possible.'
Health minister Karin Smyth said: 'This targeted approach to identify people at risk of one of the most lethal cancers could give more people a fighting chance and spare the heartbreak of countless families.'
We're delighted to see the Government commit to boosting clinical trials as part of their forthcoming 10 year plan. Clinical trials are a crucial treatment option for people with #PancreaticCancer & improving access to them could be key to driving up treatment & survival rates 🧪 https://t.co/QT1gQvZXR2
— Pancreatic Cancer UK (@PancreaticCanUK) June 16, 2025
Alfie Bailey-Bearfield, head of influencing and health improvement at Pancreatic Cancer UK, said: 'Diagnosing more people with pancreatic cancer earlier, when the disease is most treatable, would make the single biggest difference to improving survival, so we are delighted to see significant further investment from NHS England towards that incredibly important goal.
'We're proud to have been involved in shaping this new case finding pilot, which will support GPs to proactively find people with pancreatic cancer among one of largest groups known to be at increased risk: those aged over 60, with new onset diabetes who have recently lost weight without trying to do so.
'Many of the people who are referred for a CT scan during the pilot will not have pancreatic cancer, but for those that do, the impact could be lifesaving.
'Subject to the pilot's success, we will be calling for this pilot to be expanded across the country to help give more people affected by the deadliest common cancer the very best chance of survival.'
Previous research has shown that people over 50 with a new case of type 2 diabetes have a higher chance of being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer within three years.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
35 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Medics arrested at eco protests should not be struck off, say doctors
Doctors who are arrested while demonstrating at climate change protests should not be struck off, a union is being urged to say. A series of motions to be put before the British Medical Association (BMA) are calling for unwavering support to be given to NHS staff who take part in 'non-violent' eco action. If successful, the union would call for a ban on disciplinary proceedings being brought against activist doctors who are arrested for protest stunts that may include inflicting criminal damage on property and businesses. One motion submitted to the annual representative meeting in Liverpool, which begins on June 23, says the BMA should recognise ' climate change is a public health emergency ' so doctors 'have an ethical duty to advocate for direct action'. It adds that medics should 'condemn' any complaints or disciplinary actions brought 'against doctors who engage in non-violent climate activism'. 'Non-violent climate advocacy' It also calls for 'explicit protections within employment contracts… to ensure doctors do not face career detriment for engaging in non-violent climate advocacy'. Another motion asks BMA members to formally recognise 'that it is a mark of tyrannical regimes that they seek to destroy the careers of those who challenge them' and for the union to refuse to take part in any disciplinary action against medics convicted of 'forms of civil disobedience which do not involve violence to the person'. The moves follow a series of high-profile court cases that have seen doctors sanctioned for taking part in climate activism. In January, Dr Sarah Benn lost an appeal against the suspension of her medical license after she was jailed for breaching a court order by taking part in climate protests. She took part in three Just Stop Oil protests at an oil terminal in Warwickshire in 2022 before being suspended from practising for five months by the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS) in April 2024. Dr Benn, who had worked in Birmingham and has since retired, sought to challenge the tribunal's findings at the High Court. However, a judge rejected her case after concluding she 'intended to act in a way that did not meet the standards of behaviour to be expected of a doctor'. Also in January, Dr Patrick Hart was jailed for a year after being found guilty of causing criminal damage after damaging petrol pumps with a hammer and chisel at an M25 service station. In total, 16 fuel pumps at Thurrock Motorway Services, in Grays, Essex, were attacked by Hart on Aug 24, 2022. When the doctor is released from prison, he will face a tribunal after being referred for a disciplinary hearing by his medical regulator, the General Medical Council. A spokesman for the GMC said at the time that Dr Hart was not currently suspended. Before he was sentenced, Dr Hart told the court: 'Right now, the greatest health threat to all of us is the unfolding climate catastrophe. 'It is the greatest health threat we have ever faced. All healthcare workers have a responsibility to protect the health of their patients. 'If we do not stand up to the oil and gas executives who are wreaking havoc on our climate and the politicians who enable them, if we do not end the burning of fossil fuels, then we will have failed as a profession and the health systems that we have developed over centuries will collapse. 'I will continue to fight against the death sentence of fossil fuels for as long as I have strength in me. I have no greater duty as a doctor at this moment in history.'
Telegraph
an hour ago
- Telegraph
NHS survey overstates mental health crisis in children, say experts
A leading consultant has criticised official data that claims that more than one in five school children has mental health problems as 'nuts' and 'pernicious'. A new report by the Department for Education on the rise in pupils not attending school links it to increased levels of mental illness among young people. It cites NHS data showing that 21 per cent of children aged eight to 16 have a 'probable mental health problem'. The figure has been widely publicised and is part of the justification for the government's policy to put councillors in every secondary school. But experts warn that the calculation is based on 'subjective' questionnaire data and could be exaggerating the prevalence of mental health issues among young people. The Strengths and Difficulties survey used in the NHS data gives children multiple choice questions on their emotional state, concentration levels, conduct and relationships to assess their mental wellbeing. Pupils are asked questions such as: 'Have you recently felt capable of making decisions about things?'; 'Have you recently felt that you are playing a useful part in things?' and 'Do you sometimes feel anxious in certain situations?'. Response options are 'not true', 'somewhat true', or 'certainly true'. Children who score 17 or above out of 40 are recorded as having 'probable mental health problems'. However, Professor Dr Joanna Moncrieff, an academic at University College London and a practising psychiatrist for the NHS, has questioned the method and the labelling of children as mentally ill. 'Anyone scoring above the average in this survey is deemed to have a probable mental health problem – I mean that's nuts,' she told The Telegraph. 'It is a really good illustration of how misleading this whole mental health debate can be. Saying that the reason children are not going to school is because of mental health problems is oversimplifying to the extent that you are not saying anything. By saying it is a mental health problem, you think you've explained it, but you really haven't.' Dennis Hayes, a professor of education at Derby University and co-author of The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education, described the data method as 'shoddy' and 'crude'. 'It is as bad as the little questionnaires in OKAY magazine,' he said. 'I went through some of those questions. One is 'do you sometimes feel anxious in certain situations?' Yes, all the time! So, I don't think this is the way to proceed.' Prof Hayes said children and adults are being taught to see normal anxieties as ' mental health problems '. 'Multiple choice surveys merely confirm a cultural belief that we are all unwell,' he said. 'It's a terrible and destructive thing. It creates introverted children and young people who can't cope.' Prof Moncrieff said labelling children can limit them: 'People think they've found an explanation, but they haven't; they have just acquired a label and labels can be really pernicious because they limit you,' she said. 'You think 'I have this thing, therefore I can't possibly do this and I can't possibly do that'. It is really worrying.' Another academic, Frank Furedi, emeritus professor of sociology at the University of Kent, argued that children who registered concern about their lives, or the state of the world, were not necessarily exhibiting signs of mental illness. 'What used to be called problems of life, problems of existence, are now framed in the language of psychology, and we tend to medicalise our personal problems,' he said. 'So, we no longer have shy people; we have people with social phobia. We no longer have kids who are just very energetic; we have ADHD. We are inciting young people to feel unwell. To me, the mental health industry is actually complicit in creating a mental health problem.' Long waiting lists Concerns have also been raised that the data method, and others like it, could be leading to a crisis in the already overstretched Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), leaving referrals with the most serious mental health conditions stuck on long waiting lists. Almost one million children and young people had active referrals for CAMHS in England, figures from 2022-23 show. A third were on waiting lists, while 40 per cent had their referral closed before accessing support. Nearly 40,000 children experienced waits of at least two years. The most common reason for a referral for mental health treatment was cited as anxiety. 'I don't work with children, but we have quite a lot of young people coming through from CAMHS and we are absolutely overwhelmed with referrals,' said Prof Moncrieff. 'I would say anecdotally that there are people coming through who are less unwell (than in the past). Then we have the whole question of how we help; is it really helpful or might it be harmful? I don't think it is a good thing for lots of people to be on antidepressants or other forms of drug treatment.' Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, has pledged to provide school counsellors in all secondary schools in England. Campaigners say this does not go far enough and want mental health professionals at primary level too. But Prof Moncrieff said the move could have unintended negative consequences. 'The worry is that they could end up identifying and labelling more kids and sending them off to CAMHS,' she said. 'The best case scenario is counsellors reduce the need because pupils have someone to talk to and that helps. But I do worry that we have such a mental health-obsessed culture now that most people think they are doing the right thing by labelling children and referring them.'
Telegraph
2 hours ago
- Telegraph
Diane Abbott is both an old Leftie and a true Tory
Whenever MPs legislate some monstrosity, we are often assured that the debate reflected 'the House of Commons at its best', as though an odious bill is rendered less odious by everyone having observed parliamentary niceties. Anyone seeking such solace after the approval of Kim Leadbeater's Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill will have a search on their hands. Friday's debate only confirmed what a wretched, incurious and insubstantial Parliament we have, with few exceptions. One of them is Diane Abbott, the Mother of the House. She used her allotted time to make one final plea to her colleagues not to take the NHS into the killing business. It was a speech both practical and humanist but marked above all by scepticism. Abbott lodged no religious objection. She is not, she pointed out, implacably opposed to assisted suicide; she simply could not vote for such a dangerously flawed piece of legislation. Abbott spoke a language Leadbeater displays no fluency in: doubt. She told MPs she 'would not put my life, or the life of anyone dear to me, in the hands of a panel of officials'. As for those who asserted that assisted suicide would always be voluntary, she accused the Bill's supporters of failing to consider people primed to defer to authority, who would 'think that, because their doctor raises it with them at all, they are being guided in that direction'. Pro-suicide MPs might not 'take seriously' such concerns but 'anyone who knows how institutions work should be watchful of it'. Here was a socialist warning against excessive deference to public sector bureaucrats and sainted NHS doctors. She showed an up-close understanding of the state's flaws that could only come from someone who has spent a career advocating state intervention. There is no conservative like an old Leftie. The MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington says she came into politics with hopes of being 'a voice for the voiceless'. Who, she asked her colleagues to imagine, 'could be more voiceless than somebody who is in their sick bed and believes that they are dying?' We all probably know someone who doesn't want to make a fuss or be a burden on their loved ones. 'Within the family,' Abbott said, 'the most powerful coercion is silence: it is the failure to answer when a question is put'. How many people will fall silent and go along with what they imagine to be in the best interests of the people around them? We are about to find out. What we can take a guess at is the demographic profile of those who will respond in this way. It will be older women, socialised to put their husband and children first. Women from minority religious and ethnic backgrounds, communities where it is traditional for men to do the talking and the decision-making and for women to be talked to and have final decisions presented to them. Such people exist beyond the ken of a House of Commons populated by privileged graduate professionals, those who, in Abbott's words, 'have for the entirety of their adult life been confident in dealing with authority and institutions'. What about those who don't share that confidence? When you legislate with only Esther Rantzen in mind, you're going to overlook a lot of people. Diane Abbott didn't just give a good speech. MPs give good speeches all the time. She took a stand at an hour of great moral failing and made the case for social conscience at a time of personal vanity. When a future Parliament comes to reckon with what this Parliament has done, it will look back with contempt upon a fit of callousness posing as compassion.
