A recent major national study, The National Lung Cancer Audit has claimed that specialist cancer care nurses provide better treatment to the lung cancer patients as compared to others. The study has gathered data from every acute trust in the UK and was published by the NHS Information Centre on May 23.

The study has claimed that patients who received treatment from specialist nurses had an active treatment as compared to other patients. The study found that of all the patients who were seen by a lung cancer nurse specialist,
64.8% went on to receive treatment, compared with just 30.4% of patients who did not see a specialist nurse.

Professor Stephen Spiro, of the British Lung Foundation, said that the audit is a great achievement and its quality has improved year on year.

Alan Dobson, Nurse Adviser for Acute and Emergency Care at the Royal College of Nursing said that lung cancer patients who have access to a specialist nurse would get better treatment as compared to those who do not have. He further added that another reason why treatment procedures are not so good in the UK because the hospitals do not stress upon the need of early diagnosis.