Improvements, but still cause for concern

James Gubb, 6 November 2007

A report released last Friday by Civitas, looking at trends in avoidable mortality, found real improvements had been made in England and Wales; avoidable mortality from cancer fell by 15.0% and from circulatory disease by 34.0% between 1999 and 2005. But while this compares quite favourably with improvements made in many European countries, real cause for concern does remain:
• The decline in avoidable deaths from cancer has been less step since 1999, at odds with trends since 1979; which must surely question the effectiveness of NHS Cancer Plan with all the extra money that has come with it.
• Avoidable mortality rates from circulatory disease remain far above most European countries of comparable development. Assuming the best performing country, France, made no improvements in the coming years, and the NHS continued to improve at the same rate as between 1999-2004, it would still take until about 2019 for us to catch up.
The full report may be viewed here.