CANCER outcomes in Britain “lag behind” those of countries with dedicated plans to tackle the burden of the disease, experts said today.

A new cancer plan should be a “key priority” for the government, academics said as they warned that without dedicated policies “more patients with cancer will undoubtedly die.”

In a new commentary piece, published in the journal Lancet Oncology, experts argue that cancer waiting lists in Britain are “still the worst they have ever been.”

The authors said that without a dedicated cancer plan the situation “will worsen.”

“Cancer care should be firmly placed back at the top of the political agenda; doing this would save thousands of people’s lives a year,” the group of cancer doctors wrote.

Macmillan Cancer Support’s Kate Seymour called on governments to “prioritise funded long-term cross-government approaches” to “revolutionise” cancer care and “ensure everyone has access to quality and timely treatment and support.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said it has “inherited a broken NHS” and that the government will improve cancer survival rates and “radically reform” the health service.