In February 2026, the Government published its National Cancer Plan, the first dedicated cancer strategy for England in a decade. With a new administration now responsible for implementing it, we want to make sure the Plan remains a priority and its ambitions are delivered as quickly as possible. In this series, we’re examining several of the Plan’s key themes, and what needs to happen next to translate its commitments into genuine improvements for people affected by cancer.
In this article, Emma Spencelayh, Health Policy and Systems Programme Lead, and Momoko Bowles, Health Policy and Systems Advisor, explore whether the National Cancer Plan is backed by sufficient funding.
When the Government published the National Cancer Plan for England, it made an ambitious promise – to boost cancer survival to world-leading levels.
As attention turns to delivery, it’s critical to ask: is the Plan backed by sufficient funding to keep this promise?
It’s no secret that there is intense pressure on public finances right now. But the case for investing in cancer is strong.
For a start, Cancer Research UK’s polling showed that almost 8 in 10 people in England wanted to see a fully-funded plan for cancer put in place. And because our ageing and growing population means that more people will get cancer in the coming years than ever before, properly funding services means that cancer budgets will also need to increase.
And there’s a sound economic argument too. Deaths from cancer cost the UK £10 billion a year in lost productivity, and if cancer survival in the UK matched the best rates in similar countries, an estimated 8,000 full-time workers could be added to the economy each year.
So, what would a fully funded Cancer Plan actually look like?
The Plan is wide-ranging and long-term, and some areas depend on ongoing research to tell us what the future will look like. So, it would be unreasonable to expect it to set out a complete picture of every pound needed over its 10-year timeframe.
But we can understand the robustness of the Government’s approach to funding the Plan by looking at three key areas.
First, are the Plan’s direct commitments clearly backed with enough funding?
Second, are the wider NHS services that help deliver cancer care – such as primary care and diagnostics – sufficiently funded to support the Plan’s ambitions?
And third, does the Plan commit to and fund a credible approach to delivery that can ensure that change gets delivered on the ground?
So how does the Plan stack up on these fronts?
Funding for the Plan’s direct commitments – only partial clarity
In some areas, the Plan does set out concrete commitments clearly linked to funding. For example, there’s £80 million for specialist pharmacies and an additional £70 million for smoking cessation services. And funding for some key measures has been announced elsewhere – like the critically important commitment of £650 million to fully roll out targeted lung screening by 2030.
Unfortunately, not all commitments are backed by equally clear funding. Most notably, given how central innovation is to the Plan, we’d welcome greater clarity on how different pilots, evaluations and potential roll-out of new ideas will be funded, and on what scale.
This may simply reflect limits on what can be included in one document, or the complexity of describing a funding model that cuts across many areas of Government activity. But without detail, clearly laid out, on how each commitment will be funded, it is hard to tell how robust the budget sitting behind promised actions really is.
Funding wider NHS services – an incomplete plan?
Most people with cancer are diagnosed and treated by NHS services like general practice, diagnostics and surgery, that also care for other patients. Any meaningful approach to delivering the National Cancer Plan must address how these wider services keep pace with growing demand, while also contributing to earlier diagnosis and more equitable access to treatment.
Like last year’s overarching 10-Year Health Plan for England, the National Cancer Plan expects boosted productivity to free up capacity. This is important to help ensure services are sustainable, and we agree this should be a high priority.
But we have serious questions about whether productivity gains alone will be enough. The Health Plan promises NHS productivity growth of 2% a year until 2029, whilst our analysis shows that cancer cases have increased by 1-2% annually over the past decade. These figures, while not directly comparable, illustrate the scale of the challenge: if cancer treatment services improve their productivity in line with the overall NHS target, and this rate of growth continues, a large proportion of the additional capacity created could be absorbed simply by maintaining current levels of care for a growing number of patients. Factor in the need to improve waiting times, improve care and introduce innovation – and it’s likely that additional investment will be required.
The Plan is alert to this challenge, but it is not clear that its proposed solutions are enough.
For example, on workforce, the Plan recognises pressures in areas such as oncology and cancer nursing. But there’s limited focus on the wider workforce. For that, we must wait for the forthcoming 10 Year Workforce Plan.
On capital investment, the Plan references £2.3bn for new diagnostic facilities and equipment. Some of this will be highly relevant to cancer pathways, but the overall package is aimed at a broader set of services and targets. This investment is welcome, but we worry that the Department of Health and Social Care’s 10 Year Capital Plan makes no mention of key commitments made in the Cancer Plan. When there are so many competing demands on NHS capacity, it’s essential that cancer care is considered alongside other important commitments.
A credible approach to delivery – national and local
National funding to underpin cancer transformation is essential. This includes resourcing an expert national team to drive implementation across Government, as well committing funds to ensuring the delivery of the Plan on the ground, in local communities.
For this, England’s Cancer Alliances are central. They combine cancer expertise with knowledge of local populations and services, helping direct transformation funding where it can have the greatest impact. They have also driven at-scale implementation of lung screening, and record-breaking recruitment to the NHS-Galleri blood test trial, which enrolled 140,000 participants in just 10 months.
So, funding Cancer Alliances is essential. We were extremely pleased to see the Plan commit £200m to their work in 2026/27 – but we want the Government to go further, building on this with a ringfenced funding commitment that would strengthen capacity to deliver the Plan’s ambitions over multiple years.
Alongside Cancer Alliances, other local decision-makers – ICBs and NHS providers – will influence which elements of the Plan receive sustained funding. But local NHS organisations are going through significant changes while also grappling with difficult funding settlements – which could be a significant distraction from delivering the Plan.
Take radiotherapy equipment. The 2025 Spending Review committed £70m to purchase 28 new machines. But, the Plan says that further radiotherapy investment will need to come from locally allocated capital budgets – leaving local NHS organisations to decide whether or not to invest. Given well-known pressures on these budgets, we think this is risky.
Robust and rapid delivery
It’s right that local NHS leaders can shape how the Plan is delivered in their areas. But we also want to see a robust national implementation and funding approach that guarantees that Government can deliver on its promises across the country – even in a difficult financial climate.
That approach must clearly set out where funding is coming from, and how Government will ensure that wider investments pay off for cancer. Where there are gaps, these must be addressed through the next Spending Review.
The National Cancer Plan represents a landmark moment. The Government must now back the Plan with funding that measures up to the scale of its ambitions.
