This 50% figure is debunked here: http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2009/08/17/we-need-t...

In the end largely detection in the US is quite a bit better but the actual cancer care is similar.

Precisely. Survival rates are strongly correlated with early detection and the US is pretty obsessive about that. If you read the various papers on the subject, UK has poor survival rates because they have poor early detection rates. And in fairness, it is expensive to do the amount of screening that causes the US to have good survival rates.

Either way, the difference in survival rates is stark.

No, that’s not what the article says in totality, have you read it? Your statement that in all cancer you’re 50% more likely to die in the UK requires at least a link. It’s just not supported. With prostate cancer the linked article explains the difference.

That statistic does not sound accurate.

Unfortunately it is. Trivially google-able to find Lancet Oncology papers comparing cancer survival rates across Europe. UK looked quite poor comparatively.

The US has the best cancer survival rates in the world by a fair margin, though It is closer in women than men. (Edit: misremembered which European countries had relatively high survival rates)

In aware that outcomes are better in the US, but very skeptical of that amount.