My View: Our Plan for Lung Health

I’m really excited about the NHS 10-Year Plan, which has now been published. In the months leading up to the plan’s publication, our Government held the biggest ever national conversation on the future of the NHS, asking staff and patients for their views, experiences, and ideas to help shape the final plan. The plan is underpinned by three key shifts: from hospital to community, from analogue to digital, and from sickness to prevention.

The Lung Cancer Screening Programme is a National Health Service screening programme designed to identify cancers at an earlier stage. It is aimed at high-risk individuals and people with a history of smoking between the ages of 55 and 74 years old.

From the programme’s inception to April 2025, over 1.2 million lung health checks have already taken place and, as a result, clinicians have diagnosed over 7,000 cases of lung cancer. There have also been over 100,000 findings of emphysema. The 10-Year Health Plan sets out the commitment to fully roll out lung cancer screening for those with a history of smoking, which is expected to detect 9,000 cancers earlier each year.

I am also pleased that our Government has already taken positive steps toward preventing certain respiratory diseases. I supported the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, which will progressively increase the age at which people can buy cigarettes, so no one born on or after 1 January 2009 can ever be legally sold cigarettes. The ban will pave the way for a smoke-free UK, delivering on our Government’s aim to improve healthy life expectancy and reduce the number of lives lost to the biggest killers. There will also be an additional £70 million investment provided to support local authority led stop smoking services, so that current smokers have the support they need to quit.

This is alongside the establishment of 13 Respiratory Clinical Networks across England. These networks are playing a vital role in providing clinical leadership and supporting respiratory services, particularly in primary care settings. I am encouraged by the results of the first national vaccination campaign for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), launched in September 2024. With more than a million people now protected from this potentially deadly disease, findings indicate 30% fewer hospital admissions in 75- to 79-year-olds who are eligible for the vaccine under the new programme than would have occurred without vaccination. I understand that from April 2026, the eligibility criteria for the programme will expand to allow people aged 80 years and over, and all residents in care homes for older adults, to receive the RSV vaccine on the NHS.

I am delighted at the progress our Government has made on fixing our health service. It has stuck to its word and delivered the first step it promised of two million more appointments a year to cut waiting lists, achieving this target seven months early. Our Government has now exceeded this goal, with an additional 5.2 million appointments provided between July 2024 and June 2025.