Star comment: Welcome news over breast cancer survival rates
There are good reasons why we hear so much about the travails of the NHS.
The institution has moved backwards amid overwhelming demand for services, the impact of Covid, underfunding, and inconsistency between different regions.
And yet, for all the problems with the NHS, in some areas, real progress is being made.
The proportion of women who survive breast cancer, for instance, has increased substantially since the 1990s.
A survey shows that women diagnosed between 2010 and 2015 were 66 per cent less likely to die from the disease within five years, compared to those diagnosed in the 1990s. It is a remarkable improvement and one that we can take comfort from.
A woman’s risk of death within five years of diagnosis was 14.4 per cent, for those diagnosed between 1993 and 1999.
