NHS England screening programme detects 10,678 lung cancers, majority found at early stages

NHS England said its lung cancer screening program has detected 10,678 cancers since it began, with more than three quarters found at stage 1 or 2 after mobile scanning units were taken into community locations including supermarket parking lots, sports stadiums and busy high streets.

The latest cumulative total, published by NHS England on May 25, underscores the main goal of the targeted program: finding lung cancer early in people most at risk, when treatment is more likely to work. The checks are offered to current and former smokers ages 55 to 74, rather than to the whole population.

NHS England said more than 3.3 million people have been invited since launch, and more than 800,000 have had a low-dose CT scan, a type of imaging test that can spot signs of cancer before symptoms appear.

Early detection is critical in lung cancer, which is often diagnosed late. According to NHS England, people whose cancer is found at the earliest stages are nearly 13 times more likely to survive for five years than those diagnosed after the disease has advanced. That is why the stage 1 and stage 2 diagnosis rate is the most significant figure behind the headline total.

The program began as a pilot in high-risk areas in 2019 and is due to be rolled out across England by 2030 under the government’s National Cancer Plan. That plan says the expansion is expected to invite more than 6 million people and help diagnose up to around 50,000 cancers by 2035.

The new NHS England figure is a later update to previously published research. A Nature Medicine paper published in March 2026, using program data up to March 2025, reported 2,510,092 invitations and 7,193 lung cancers diagnosed. The new total shows how far the program has progressed since then.

“Lung cancer checks and scans save lives, so it’s fantastic the NHS has now diagnosed over 10,000 people — the majority at an early stage, when treatment is most effective,” said Professor Peter Johnson, NHS England’s national clinical director for cancer.

Among those diagnosed was Ken Roberts, 74, from Ladybridge, Bolton, who was invited for a check when a mobile unit was stationed at a Morrisons in Bolton. NHS England said he was diagnosed with stage 1 lung cancer after attending the appointment.

Roberts said he almost skipped the check but went because it was easy to access. “Now I just feel really lucky that I went for that lung health check as I so nearly didn’t go. And I’m telling everyone to go for theirs when they get the invite,” he said.

The public health stakes are high. NHS England says lung cancer causes about 26,000 deaths a year in England, and about seven in 10 cases are caused by smoking. The screening program is aimed at reducing that toll by reaching people at higher risk and detecting disease sooner, before it becomes harder to treat.