Charity Macmillan Cancer Support has today (March 26) warned that cancer mortality rates in older people are failing to match improvements in mortality rates for younger patients.

More than half of all people who’ve been newly diagnosed with cancer are over 70 – and although some are frail, increasingly more are fit and active.

The charity says ‘under-treatment’ among older patients and a failure to take into account the effects of age are to blame – adding that if mortality rates for over-75s matched US levels there would be 14,000 fewer deaths a year among the older generation.

It is calling for:

• Older people to be offered treatment and care based their physical fitness rather than their age
• Older people to be given the practical help they need so they don’t miss out on treatment and get the right support at home.