£5m To Tackle Yorkshire's Poor Cancer Survival Rates

You're more likely to die from cancer if you live in Yorkshire - that's according to the latest figures from the Office of National Statistics

It's prompted Yorkshire Cancer Research to invest 5 million pounds into new and local research. It'll look at the way patients are cared for in Leeds rather than the science behind treatment.

Charles Rowett is from the charity, he reckons the south have a much better deal:

"Social deprivation, industrial diseases, health inequalities that are because of your access to health services and screening facilities.. . In the north of England we have cancer outcomes that are worse than other parts of the country. If you look at Yorkshire, the North West and the North East - these are the areas that have the highest incident rates and the lowerst survival rates across a whole range of different cancers.

"We have a larger number of cancers that actually are more prevalent in our county than they are in the rest of the country. Survival rates acan often be lower and we weant to invest in the research here so that patients can do better."

Paul Steward from the University of Leeds is a part of the multi million pound investment.

He agrees there's a divide, saying the south get more money for cancer research, impacting the quality of cancer treatment up north. "Some of it we think is social deprivation, we think that it somehow links to other diseases that those patients may have, such as for example smoking related illnesses or illness behaviour that comes with unemployment."

He told Radio Aire what he hopes the investment will bring "to help patients in Yorkshire first and foremost, so for example new treatment such as immunotherapy, new diagnostics for cancer so that patients can be diagnosed even earlier and that's mission critical that we get that right."