At one of the North West's main cancer hospitals, news of the country's striking health divide came as little surprise to oncologists on the front line. “I thought it would be higher,” said Peter Clark, a consultant in medical oncology at Clatterbridge Centre for Oncology.

Speaking as a man who delivers life-shattering cancer diagnoses, he said he had seen first-hand the human cost of Merseysiders' increased statistical chances of dying. The mortality ratio for Liverpool, where the national mean is represented by 100, is 133.

The biggest problem, he said, was getting patients to their GP's surgery and through the doors of the hospital early enough, and fit enough to withstand the rigours of treatment.

“Certainly your middle-class housewife in Surrey with a little breast lump knows exactly what to do, whereas your poorly educated, working-class, busy working mother in Liverpool, Widnes, Manchester or wherever has other priorities, one of which is not taking time off work.”

Too often, lifestyle choices have left them debilitated, and cancer is only one illness among a number. It cuts down the medical options.

Dr Clark, the chairman of the national chemotherapy advisory group that advises the Government, said others could simply be frightened. “I have seen some people with lung cancer present late because they have seen their parents die of it and conclude, ‘Why should I do anything other than die in my fifties?' because that is the experience within the family.”

Underscoring the point about taking tests, one Southerner, Laurence Whelan, 80, from North London, said he owed his life to a simple prostate blood test that picked up signs of cancer in the absence of any other symptoms.

“My two brothers both had prostate cancer and survived, and if they hadn't bullied me into going for that test ten years ago I might not still be here,” he said.

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