![UK GPs To Be Empowered To Send Patients For Cancer Screening UK GPs To Be Empowered To Send Patients For Cancer Screening](https://www.medindia.net/afp/images/EU-health-cancer-69315.jpg)
But in the new scheme of things, the GPs themselves can order chest X-rays, ultrasounds and MRI brain scans.
The idea is to enable GPs to have better direct access to testing for those patients who are not classed as urgent but could benefit from further investigation.
To achieve this, the government is freeing up money to improve access to a range of tests. Over the next four years more than £450m is being earmarked for the additional facilities required.
The move forms the central plank of the government's cancer strategy aimed at saving an extra 5,000 lives a year and raise survival rates up to European averages.
The UK still has some of the worst cancer survival rates in Europe, largely because cancer is more often spotted too late for anything to be done about it.
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A study last year found that almost a quarter of cancer cases were only spotted when patients underwent emergency treatment.
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The strategy also contains details on a number of initiatives already announced.
These include the plans to roll out sigmoidoscopy screening for bowel cancer, the £200m cancer drugs fund for treatments not routinely funded by the NHS and increasing the number of cancer specialists.
There will be a £10m advertising campaign to raise awareness about the signs and symptoms of some of the most common cancers as well.
Harpal Kumar, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, said the strategy was a welcome move.
But he added: "The government now needs to ensure that this new investment flows through and is quickly taken up by front-line services."
But critics will warn there is a danger that unspecialised GPs will, for example, send people for costly MRI scans if they have a headache.
Source-Medindia