NHS Struggling To Provide Safe Cancer Care Say Doctors

Senior doctors are claiming that the NHS is struggling to provide safe and effective care for all cancer patients.

The Royal College of Radiologists is warning that the UK is facing “chronic staff shortages”, with patients waiting too long for vital tests and treatments.

According to the BBC:

Half of all cancer units are now reporting frequent delays for both radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

Ministers say a workforce strategy for the NHS in England is due shortly.

The plan, which is meant to spell out how the government will plug staffing gaps over the next 15 years, has been repeatedly delayed, to the frustration of some in the health service.

In other parts of the UK, ministers say cancer waiting lists are a priority and extra investment is being made in staff and diagnostic equipment.

NHS services across the whole UK have been struggling to meet cancer targets since well before Covid.

The pandemic increased the backlog, with scans and treatment disrupted by lockdowns.

Across England, Scotland and Northern Ireland, one key target is to start treatment within two months of an urgent referral by a GP.

In Wales the measure is slightly different as it includes all urgent and non-urgent referrals.

All four nations are operating well below those levels. In England just 64% of patients start treatment in that time against a target of 85%.

Growing delays are, in part, the flip side of a medical success story.

Scientific progress in cancer care has been remarkable, with cutting-edge drugs offering hope where previously there was little that could be done.

New techniques are more effective but often far more complex for doctors to deliver.

At the same time the UK population is getting older – and as cancer risk is strongly linked to age it means more more demand for expensive scanners, along with more staff to analyse those scans, and more specialist doctors and nurses.

The Royal College of Radiologists (RCR) describes the situation as a perfect storm – and says the workforce is struggling to keep up…

The RCR says for each month a patient waits to start cancer treatment, the risk of death is increased by about 10%.

In its annual survey, 44% of cancer service managers say they are now “highly concerned” about patient delays, up from 29% in the previous year.

“There are examples in almost every cancer centre where parts of the service just aren’t running as well as we would like,” said Dr Tom Roques, a consultant oncologist and vice-president of the RCR.

“We’re having to tell patients all the time that we can’t quite treat them as quickly as we would like, or in the way that we’d like, and that’s a stressful thing to have to do.”

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