Call to give UK cancer patients legal right to be treated within two months
Cancer patients should have the legal right to be treated within two months, even if that means the NHS has to pay for them to be treated privately or abroad, according to international experts.Writing in the Lancet Oncology, they say cancer patients should have the legally enforceable entitlement to be treated within 62 days of an urgent referral by a GP.This would bring the UK in line with Denmark, where cancer patients already have a statutory right to timely treatment.International research shows that every four weeks of delay in cancer treatment increases the risk of death by up to 10%.But the NHS has not met its target for 85% of cancer patients to start treatment within 62 days since December 2015.
The authors argue that without legal rights in the UK, the government’s forthcoming national cancer plan risks being a paper exercise that will fail to get the UK off the bottom of cancer survival league tables.“The concern is that the [cancer plan] will be a consensus plan to appease multiple stakeholders, rather than to provide radical, accountable, independent leadership,” the Lancet paper concludes.Statutory rights to timely treatment would cut waiting lists and improve survival rates, the experts argue.Eduardo Pisani, a co-author of the paper and chief executive of All.Can, a global nonprofit that aims to improve cancer care efficiency, said: “International evidence shows that strong cancer plans, supported by legal rights, ensure patients have guaranteed access to timely, high-quality care.
This protection promotes early treatment, reduces inequalities and ultimately improves health outcomes,”Since 1999, a cancer patient in Denmark has the right to start treatment within 28 days of being referred, and within a maximum of 14 days of consenting to the treatment,Five-year survival rates for some cancers are among the best in Europe, with minimal waiting lists,Mark Lawler, a professor of digital health at Queen’s University Belfast, chair of the International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership and joint lead author of the paper, said introducing legal rights for cancer patients like Denmark would mean “if UK cancer patients cannot be treated at their own hospital within 62 days, the NHS would have to pay to treat them at another NHS hospital, privately or in another country”,“This fundamental contract between patients and the NHS must be explicit, with patients able to seek legal redress for any breaches.
”As well as the right to be treated within two months, patients should have the legal right to be given a designated named cancer professional to oversee their care, and after successful treatment they should be legally entitled to be forgotten,The law, already in place in nine European countries, means that five years after successful treatment, patients would not have to reveal their previous cancer diagnosis,Insurers and mortgage providers would be prohibited from asking for or accessing this information, ensuring patients are not discriminated against and charged more because of their previous diagnosis,Cary Adams, the chief executive of the Union for International Cancer Control, said: “Cancer plans recognising the rights of all people living with cancer to receive the treatment they need when they need it are essential in every country,Time and time again, we see governments struggle to respond to cancer in their country without a robust, well-funded plan, resulting in the unnecessary loss of people’s lives and trauma to their families.
”A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “This government is committed to transforming cancer care following years of neglect,“We are determined to ensure patients get timely diagnoses – that is why we have introduced Jess’s rule, requiring GPs to reconsider cases where symptoms escalate or no diagnosis emerges after three appointments,“We are also cutting waiting times for cancer care, diagnosing or ruling out 135,000 more cancer cases this year, building more community diagnostic centres, offering evening and weekend appointments and spending £70m on new radiotherapy machines to get patients faster access to the tests, checks and scans they require,”
Tesla shareholders approve $1tn pay package for Elon Musk
Tesla shareholders approved a $1tn compensation plan for CEO Elon Musk on Thursday, awarding the world’s richest person what would be the largest corporate payout in history if he meets the goals necessary to receive it.The pay package, which several high-profile investors opposed, demonstrates that shareholders still believe Musk can lead the automaker in an era dominated by robotics and artificial intelligence.The result of the vote was announced at the annual shareholder event in Austin, Texas, with more than 75% of investors voting in favor of the plan. Chants of “Elon” erupted in the room at the news of its approval.“Thanks, guys,” Musk said, after briefly dancing on stage alongside the company’s Optimus robots
Amazon sues AI startup over browser’s automated shopping and buying feature
Amazon sued a prominent artificial intelligence startup on Tuesday over a shopping feature in the company’s browser, which can automate placing orders for users. Amazon accused Perplexity AI of covertly accessing customer accounts and disguising AI activity as human browsing.“Perplexity’s misconduct must end,” Amazon’s lawyers wrote. “Perplexity is not allowed to go where it has been expressly told it cannot; that Perplexity’s trespass involves code rather than a lockpick makes it no less unlawful.”Perplexity, which has grown rapidly amid the boom in AI assistants, has previously rejected the US shopping company’s claims, accusing Amazon of using its market dominance to stifle competition
Google plans to put datacentres in space to meet demand for AI
Google is hatching plans to put artificial intelligence datacentres into space, with its first trial equipment sent into orbit in early 2027.Its scientists and engineers believe tightly packed constellations of about 80 solar-powered satellites could be arranged in orbit about 400 miles above the Earth’s surface equipped with the powerful processors required to meet rising demand for AI.Prices of space launches are falling so quickly that by the middle of the 2030s the running costs of a space-based datacentre could be comparable to one on Earth, according to Google research released on Tuesday.Using satellites could also minimise the impact on the land and water resources needed to cool existing datacentres.Once in orbit, the datacentres would be powered by solar panels that can be up to eight times more productive than those on Earth
LOL: is this the ultimate texting faux pas (and what should you use instead)?
From abbreviations to happy poos, gen Z has strong opinions on appropriate texting behaviour. But can anyone keep up with the ever-changing rules?Name: “LOL”.Age: The Oxford English Dictionary first included LOL in 1997.Not to be confused with: Loll, which is what dogs sometimes do.So as in “laugh out loud”? Or laughing out loud, though David Cameron thought it stood for “lots of love” and used to sign off to Rebekah Brooks, the former Sun and News of the World editor, with a LOL
Apple Watch SE 3 review: the bargain smartwatch for iPhone
Apple’s entry level Watch SE has been updated with almost everything from its excellent mid-range Series 11 but costs about 40% less, making it the bargain of iPhone smartwatches.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.The new Watch SE 3 costs from £219 (€269/$249/A$399), making it one of the cheapest brand-new fully fledged smartwatches available for the iPhone and undercutting the £369 Series 11 and the top-of-the-line £749 Apple Watch Ultra 3
Experts find flaws in hundreds of tests that check AI safety and effectiveness
Experts have found weaknesses, some serious, in hundreds of tests used to check the safety and effectiveness of new artificial intelligence models being released into the world.Computer scientists from the British government’s AI Security Institute, and experts at universities including Stanford, Berkeley and Oxford, examined more than 440 benchmarks that provide an important safety net.They found flaws that “undermine the validity of the resulting claims”, that “almost all … have weaknesses in at least one area”, and resulting scores might be “irrelevant or even misleading”.Many of the benchmarks are used to evaluate the latest AI models released by the big technology companies, said the study’s lead author, Andrew Bean, a researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute.In the absence of nationwide AI regulation in the UK and US, benchmarks are used to check if new AIs are safe, align to human interests and achieve their claimed capabilities in reasoning, maths and coding
Tom Butler obituary
‘A job is like finding a needle in a haystack’: how Dudley became centre of UK’s youth jobs crisis
Emma Barnett says she felt ‘mugged, robbed’ after perimenopause at 38
NHS to take over state-of-the-art hospital from private health group in ‘windfall’
Call to give UK cancer patients legal right to be treated within two months
Lammy says he was right not to discuss mistakenly freed prisoner at PMQs