Patients with lung cancer are dying after being diagnosed late because general practitioners overlooked signs of the disease, according to a new report.
As many as 56% of people in some parts of England who get lung cancer are only diagnosed when they visit A&E, according to a report by the UK Lung Cancer Coalition.
They are five times more likely to die within a year than those whose condition has been identified either by their GP or through the NHS cancer screening program.
Family doctors often fail to diagnose cases of lung cancer until it is too late to treat effectively or miss them altogether, leading patients to seek help at A&E, the report says.
