In January 2024, Demos published The Cost of Breast Cancer, the first report of its kind to model the true economic and wellbeing cost of breast cancer on the UK. Now, with new post-Covid data available, the updated model reveals that in 2025 the cost of breast cancer to the UK economy now exceeds £3.2 billion and reaches £20 billion in wellbeing costs. Looking ahead, without intervention, annual costs could rise to nearly £4 billion by 2050.
The report builds on various interventions outlined in the first report and their associated savings: raising screening uptake to 80%, tackling inequalities faced by ethnic minority women and those in the most deprived areas, and the potential impact of AI diagnostic technology.
We have been working with Breast Cancer Now since 2023 to model the impact of breast cancer and our analysis provides crucial evidence of the economic and wellbeing benefits of early diagnosis and treatment. In the context of the NHS 10 Year Plan for Health announcing a shift ‘from disease cure to disease prevention’ this paper comes at a timely juncture. It helps draw attention to the massive opportunity we have to reduce the impact of this devastating disease on our country.