Britain is bottom of international league tables for cancer survival – and is lagging two decades behind some countries for some types of disease – a global study shows.

The research on almost four million patients by the World Health Organisation (WHO) shows improvements have failed to keep pace with those in other comparable countries.

The 20 year study shows that patients in Britain have the lowest survival rates for five out of seven common cancers.

Despite improvements across all countries, the UK’s relative position now is significantly worse than when the study started in the 90s, when it fared worst for three out of seven cancers.

Britain is now bottom of the table for bowel, lung, stomach pancreatic and rectal cancer, second worst for oesophageal disease and in third worst position for ovarian cancer.

It follows British research which found that two in three cases of disease are not being picked up by GPs.

The new study, which covers the period from 2010 to 2014, published in The Lancet Oncology, shows significant improvements across all seven high income countries which were tracked.