Dr Maurice Slevin, one of the authors of the report, said: “Cancer care is in crisis but this is a solvable crisis if urgent and fundamental reform is introduced.”

In the past two years the Department of Health has made at least 20 announcements claiming big improvements in cancer care, citing an increase of nearly 1,200 cancer specialists and improvements in cancer survival rates.

However, the latest analysis estimates Britain still has one of the lowest survival rates in western Europe with only 36% of men likely to survive beyond five years compared with 55% in Austria, 50% in Sweden, 45% in France and Germany, and 44% in Spain. Currently more than 1m people are living with cancer in Britain. It has overtaken heart disease as the country’s biggest killer causing about 160,000 deaths a year.

John Reid, the health secretary, often quotes the statistic that more than 99% of patients are now seen by a specialist within two weeks of being referred by their GP but experts say it is the length of time until patients receive treatment that matters.

The report, published today by Reform, an independent think tank that helped set up Doctors for Reform last February, concludes: “The cancer plan is delivering poor value for money. It is simply not delivering as hoped and there are no reasons for expecting any dramatic improvements in the future. In the interests of patients we must look at ways of bringing about a rapid improvement in the situation.”

The study was by Professor Karol Sikora, a former chief of the World Health Organisation’s cancer programme, Nick Bosanquet, professor of health policy at Imperial College London, and Slevin, consultant oncologist at Barts and the London NHS Trust.

Doctors for Reform says progress has been held back by an NHS monopoly and wants 30% of cancer treatment to be handed to private companies over the next two years.

Mike Richards, the cancer czar, said waiting times for radiotherapy had risen as demand had increased sharply but added: “We have installed 40% more linear accelerators in the last five years and doubled the number of therapy radiographers in training.”