Fresh and Balance respond to new National Cancer Plan
More action is needed to prevent thousands of cancers every year from alcohol and tobacco as part of a new National Cancer Plan planned for England.
Fresh and Balance have responded alongside dozens of other charities and health organisations to the Department of Health and Social Care’s call for evidence to help shape a new National Cancer Plan to ease the burden of cancer on people, communities and the NHS.
Despite progress reducing smoking, tobacco still causes over 58,000 new cases of cancer in the UK each year – an all-time high due to a larger population. And meanwhile alcohol consumption is behind an estimated 17,000 new cancer cases annually, with alcohol companies lobbying against policies and enticing people to buy and drink more through price promotions and advertising.
In the North East, partners have signed up to the Declaration for a Smokefree Future free of the death and disease of tobacco, and the Balance Blueprint to Reduce Alcohol Harm calling on the Government for a new national strategy to reduce alcohol harm with deaths and hospital admissions from alcohol at record levels.
Ailsa Rutter OBE Director of Fresh and Balance said: “We hugely welcome national action on smoking through the Tobacco and Vapes Bill. However, with alcohol we have been sleepwalking into a national emergency, with deaths and hospital admissions at record levels and the worst in regions like the North East due to existing inequalities.
“There has not been a National Alcohol Strategy since 2012 at a time when cheap, home drinking has overtaken pubs, fuelling harm, cancers, liver disease and the mental health issues related to alcohol.
“We now also need concerted national action around alcohol which puts people and communities first and does not put the profits of powerful alcohol multinational companies right at the top of the priority list.”
Cancer Research UK highlights that nearly 4 in 10 cancers in the UK are preventable, but estimates that by 2040, cancer incidence in the UK is estimated to increase by around a fifth to 500,000 new diagnoses annually and 208,000 cancer deaths every year.
Fresh and Balance is calling for the following measures across alcohol and tobacco in order to help prevent the rising toll of preventable cancers including:
- Commit to the introduction of an evidence-based national alcohol strategy for England, free from alcohol industry influence, raising awareness of alcohol health risks through public education and mandatory health information on alcohol labels.
- Restrict alcohol promotion and introduce pricing policies to reduce harmful alcohol consumption, improve public health and protect the NHS
- Earlier detection and symptom awareness and prioritising early interventions on smoking and alcohol across the NHS and health system, ensuring front line professionals are equipped with the knowledge and training and able to make a life-changing intervention and offer support
- Support measures laid out in the April 2025 report “A Roadmap to a Smokefree Country” by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Smoking and Health – including reducing smoking rates by 2 million people by the end of this Parliament and introduce a ‘polluter pays’ levy to raise £700 million a year from tobacco industry profits
- Recognise the commercial drivers of health and the fact the role of the tobacco, alcohol and unhealthy food and drink industries in holding back progress in improving health.