Cancer treatment crisis as 18,000 on waiting list in 'heartbreaking' NHS figures
Charities have warned of the consequences of urgent referrals facing delays of at least 100 days.
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Over 18,000 patients who have been given an urgent referral for suspected cancer in the last year waited at least 100 days to start treatment. According to charities, the figures which have doubled since the pandemic are having catastrophic consequences.
Britain already has one of the worst survival rates for cancer among comparable countries including France, Germany, Italy, Canada and the United States.
For every four week delay to starting treatment survival can be reduced by 10 percent, according to research.
NHS figures for a 12 month period ending in October 2022 showed 18,679 patients who had an urgent referral for suspected cancer waited at least 104 days for treatment.
In comparison, the figure was 8,820 in the 12 months that ended in October 2019.
NHS had waiting times when we were in the EU. European countries were able to keep cancer services going but our NHS has all these diversity managers instead of doctors and nurses. That’s a choice society has made and we have to now live with it.
— goodeliberal2016 (@goodeliberal201) January 2, 2023
Prof Pat Price, an oncologist from Imperial College London, described the figures as "heartbreaking" and argued there was no plan to deal with the ongoing crisis.
She said: "For cancer clinicians like myself, these record-breaking cancer waiting-time figures are heartbreaking.
"We are plummeting further into a national cancer crisis, and it feels like the Government is continuing to ignore the growing evidence.
"It beggars belief that there is no practical or effective plan to deal with this.
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The #NHS outcomes as experienced by U.K. voting public are longer waiting lists, longer times to treatment in A&E, deteriorating cancer treatments (all much worse before #Covid) more recently slower ambulance services 12 years of neglect, underfunding & incompetence #GENow pic.twitter.com/OmLAD4v1fJ
— Bob Scott (@Scobbert) December 24, 2022
Are people in Britain still defending having one of the worst Survival rates for any kind of cancer, waiting times and getting bancrupt by a corrupt government scheme called NHS? That's how government central planing looks in another country that calls itself "underfunded" pic.twitter.com/HIaZv9mlix
— Anette Schütt (@AnettSchuett) December 30, 2022
"Patients diagnosed with cancer are waiting longer than ever for life-saving treatment.
"The front line is at breaking point.
"Now is the time for an urgent investment boost into treatment capacity."
According to analysis in the medical journal The Lancet Oncology, there were 9,000 extra deaths from cancer in the UK since the start of the Covid pandemic.
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Half the working nation, including NHS staff are off sick! How can they get the NHS back on pandemic style footing? A paramedic friend of mine said people are sick with everything, covid, flu, blood clots, heart, cancer etc; never seen anything like it in 20 years! https://t.co/J4Ss1xP55Z
— Cas crunchie (@CarolIOWgroomer) January 2, 2023
Experts argue that the difficulties in accessing GP care and delays after referral meant that too many patients were facing potentially deadly delays to the start of their treatment.
According to NHS figures, patients faced delays of at least 100 days at Liverpool Women’s NHS Foundation Trust, Royal Papworth Hospital Foundation Trust in Cambridge, University Hospital Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust and North Middlesex University Hospital Trust in London.
NHS targets stipulate that 85 percent of patients given an urgent referral should start treatment within 62 days.