Brown to detail five-year cancer plan

LONDON - Breast cancer screening will be extended to women from the ages of 47 to 73 as part of a five-year plan for cancer services, Prime Minister Gordon Brown will announce on Monday.

Brown will detail the government's Cancer Reform Strategy with Health Secretary Alan Johnson at a round-table meeting at his 10 Downing Street residence with doctors and medical charities, the Department of Health said.

The extension of screening from the current age range of 50 to 70 will mean checks for a further 200,000 women each year.

The expansion, heralded by Brown at the Labour Party conference in September, will include an 100 million pound investment in digital mammography equipment.

Charity Breakthrough Breast Cancer welcomed the funding for screening equipment but said it wanted to hear how widely and swiftly the money would be spent.

"It is likely to take a number of years before it is fully rolled out and sufficient resources and a clear timetable for implementation will be essential," said the charity's head of policy, Sarah Rawlings.

Johnson will also announce a consultation on banning the sale of tobacco in vending machines in an attempt to further clamp down on smoking, the biggest preventable cause of cancer.

The consultation will include questions on reducing cigarette displays in stores and a fresh look at the packaging on cigarettes.

His department will also announce a review into the use and number of sun beds amid concern about rising levels of skin cancer.

Later in the week Johnson will give details of plans to improve treatment for stroke patients.

Government spending on cancer services in England has nearly tripled to 4.35 billion pounds last year from 1.5 billion pounds in 2000.

But the opposition Conservatives said the massive increase in funding had not produced a comparable improvement in the rate of cancer survival.

It said survival rates over the last 10 years of Labour administration had risen at the same rate as the previous decade under the Conservatives.

"What is saddening is that if the UK achieved European-best levels of cancer survival rates then 95 lives each day could be saved," said Conservative health spokesman Mark Simmonds.