GPs are inadequately equipped to manage growing demand for cancer care, study warns

GPs are inadequately trained and resourced to manage the growing demand for cancer care in high income countries, an expert review has warned.

The report, published in the Lancet Oncology, highlighted the gap between the expectation from governments and health funders that healthcare will increasingly be managed in primary care and the predicted doubling of the need for cancer care over the next 15 years.1 A primary care doctor with 2000 patients currently has around 70 patients with or surviving cancer, but this will double to around 140 patients by 2040.

Representatives from primary care …