If I were Mike Richards, I'd be feeling a bit miffed. And if you don't know who he is, that proves my point. Professor Mike Richards is the cancer tsar - sorry, since last week the title has been upmarketed to National Cancer Director. And for more than a year, this hugely respected cancer specialist has been touring the country, talking and listening to other cancer doctors and nurses about problems and shortages and ways to haul treatment in the UK up by the bootstraps.
Richards is the author of the national cancer plan. Remember its launch last week? Perhaps not. It turned into headlines for the prime minister's Labour party speech, which could be roughly paraphrased as "more money, more doctors and nurses, better equipment and medicines" - and which sounded like little more than a replay of the NHS national plan launch in July.
Richards held a much lower key briefing at the department of health in Whitehall the following day, just as the health secretary, Alan Milburn, stood up to speak in Brighton on cleaning contracts in the NHS. The agenda had already moved on. Richards missed his five minutes of fame.
It's a shame the cancer plan did not get the coverage it deserved. Because it's good. It isn't a papering over the cracks exercise. It addresses the real problems and comes up with answers. If we don't succeed in reaching the survival rates enjoyed in Europe and the USA, it won't be Richards' fault. Shortages of machines for diagnosing cancer and for radiotherapy have been a huge problem. The NHS will be buying them in as fast as they can be built. Radiotherapists, who operate them, and cancer nurses - both in very short supply - will be lured back with money, better training and career incentives. This is besides the Blair banner-waving stuff about 1,000 more cancer specialists and maximum waits of a month from diagnosis to treatment.
Richards hasn't ducked the screening issue. There will be more - for prostate, ovarian, colorectal and lung cancer as and when they become possible - but we're going to be told far more about the downside as well as the up. No more pretence that you will never be mistakenly told you've got cancer - or that a negative test always means you're clear. There will be campaigns to encourage us to lower our own risk, by stopping smoking and eating more fruit and vegetables. And there will be more support so that people for whom nothing more can be done can die in their own homes, as most want.
It's a huge and comprehensive vision that is going to require a lot of time, effort and money. An extra £570m a year by 2003-4 (from the sums announced in the national plan), but already there are murmurings that it will not be enough. But the main thing is the commitment. We have a blueprint, we know what needs doing and now we have to get on with it and scream for more money later if necessary.
This is the big chance to overhaul the system. That's why Richards deserved a bit more attention. Instead, we had more distracting stories from the European Breast Cancer Conference about shark's fin (doesn't work), vitamin A (might help younger women) and a new drug called Femara which the manufacturers say is better than Tamoxifen (after a relatively tiny study). Let's get the basics sorted first, shall we?
