Milburn pledges Europe's best cancer care by 2010

Alan Milburn, the Secretary of State for Health, promised yesterday to deliver the "fastest improvement in cancer services anywhere in Europe" as part of plans to cut waiting list times for treatment to a maximum of one month by 2005.

Alan Milburn, the Secretary of State for Health, promised yesterday to deliver the "fastest improvement in cancer services anywhere in Europe" as part of plans to cut waiting list times for treatment to a maximum of one month by 2005.

Mr Milburn pledged that the national cancer plan would overcome regional inequalities in care, ensuring that the survival rates from the disease were among the best in Europe by 2010.

The Government will spend £50 million to match voluntary funding for hospice and palliative care. Mr Milburn also promised an increase in the proportion of National Lottery money channelled into hospices for children suffering from cancer.

Mr Milburn said: "As a result of this expansion, the plan shows how we will cut waiting [times]. A one month maximum from diagnosis to treatment of breast cancer next year - and for all cancers within five years. By 2010 our cancer survival rates will be among the best in Europe."

Mr Milburn confirmed there would be 1,000 extra cancer specialists over the next six years, an increase of nearly one-third, and 295 new scanners and radiotherapy machines. He said there would be shorter waiting times too for other services such as casualty treatment. He said: "We will cut maximum waiting times for hospital treatment from 18 months to six, and then we will cut them again from six to three months."

In a passionate speech, Mr Milburn told delegates about the death of his friend Ian Weir, former deputy chief photographer of The Northern Echo, who died aged 38 while waiting for a heart operation on the NHS.

The Secretary of State announced that there would be 84 new chest-pain clinics by next year - 34 more than originally announced, 7,000 extra beds and 100 new hospitals by 2004. With extra responsibility for NHS staff would come extra pay for doctors and nurses.

Mr Milburn disclosed that he was giving the go-ahead for the first dozen of 100 NHS workplace nurseries. "From now on, every hospital will have to include nursery and childcare provision before it gets my go-ahead."

Delegates cheered as he promised an end to compulsory competitive tendering (CCT) in the NHS. "All too often CCT lowered standards of cleanliness in our hospitals. It has not improved care for patients. It has damaged the NHS for far too long. It will now go."

From next year new standards would be set to end "age discrimination" in the NHS, and nursing care for the elderly would be free.

"Nursing care is currently free in hospitals and free at home. It is not free in nursing homes. From next year we will end that injustice for older people. Wherever they are cared for, nursing care will be free."

Mr Milburn also announced that within three years support for carers would be doubled to £100m a year. "Their dedication is living proof that there is such a thing as society. It falls to this generation, to this party, to renew the NHS for thiscentury."

Delyth Morgan, chief executive of Breast Cancer Care, said the plan offered "real hope" for everyone affected by cancer. It would require "a major cultural change" in the NHS, she said.

"All of us will have to face cancer at some point in our lives, many as patients," she said. We owe it to ourselves and to future generations to turn the devastation of cancer into a positive force for the future."