Jump to content
  • articles
    9,853
  • comments
    83
  • views
    12,496,304

Contributors to this article

About this News

Articles in the news

 

Care home worker cancer misdiagnosis

A care home worker who was wrongly diagnosed with cancer said she thought it was a "cruel joke" when she was told doctors had made a mistake and she did not have cancer at all.

Mum-of-four Janice Johnston said her "world crumbled" when she learned she had a rare form of blood cancer at Kent and Canterbury Hospital in 2017.

She had 18 months of oral chemotherapy treatment, during which she experienced weight loss, nausea and bone pain, and had to give up her job as an auxiliary nurse. When the treatment did not appear to be working, she says, medics upped the dosage.

In 2018, she sought alternative treatment at Guy's Hospital in London. It was there a specialist told her she did not have cancer at all but a different condition.

Mrs Johnston was awarded £75,950 in damages after East Kent Hospitals University NHS Foundation Trust admitted liability. Staff at the hospital had failed to do the necessary ultrasound scan and bone marrow biopsy before diagnosing her.

Read full story

Source:  BBC News, 25 January 2021

Read more

Care home under investigation following claims of unsafe conditions

A care home with some of the highest Covid death rates recorded in the pandemic is facing whistleblower claims over unsafe conditions.

Golfhill Nursing Home, in Dennistoun in Glasgow's East End, Scotland, is run by Advinia Healthcare, which confirmed a "large scale" investigation was taking place.

A report by the Crown Office, published in April, showed Golfhill care home recorded 11 deaths related to coronavirus, among the highest rates.

The Care Inspectorate investigation is said to have followed "months of complaints" about sub-standard and unsafe conditions at the home, including residents being admitted to hospital suffering from dehydration.

The problems are said to centre on the intermediate care unit, where elderly residents are transferred after being discharged from hospital, requiring a higher level of care and remaining there for around a month before being sent home or into long-term care.

According to a source, the unit has been short staffed "almost on a daily basis" because employees were being transferred to other areas of the home.

Read full story

Source: The Scotsman, 17 December 2021

Read more

Care home staff COVID vaccination levels below target in more than half LAs

The vaccination rate for staff at older care homes is below the recommended level set by scientists in more than half of England’s local authorities, analysis of NHS England data has revealed.

Data as of 18 April shows that 76 out of 149 LAs had not reached the 80% vaccination threshold for care home staff to provide a minimum level of protection against COVID-19, according to the PA news agency.

In 17 areas, less than 70% of staff had received a first jab. Lambeth, where 23 cases of a South African COVID variant have been recently reported in a care home, had the lowest uptake at 52.4%.

The government last week announced the launch of a five-week consultation on mandatory staff vaccination as a result of the failure in some areas to reach the designated threshold.

Read full story

Source: Care Home Professional. 23 April 2021

Read more

Care home safety ratings can’t be trusted, says watchdog boss

The public can no longer trust safety ratings when choosing a care home for elderly parents, the new head of England’s care watchdog has admitted.

Sir Julian Hartley, the chief executive of the Care Quality Commission (CQC), said the problems applied across NHS hospitals, care homes and other health and social care facilities. The regulator has “lost its way” with many of its reports now years out of date, he said.

A new IT system brought in to streamline the inspection process didn’t work, meaning that reports were lost and information could not be recorded. In some cases the system failed to note actions in responses to safety concerns raised with the CQC so staff are having to go back over a backlog of 5,000 alerts.

Hartley said the system had been “a complete failure in terms of what it set out to achieve”. A review has been launched and he promised it would be made public.

He aid the issue was a matter of public confidence. “If you’re thinking about where to put your mum in a care home you want to have reliable information that’s up to date. Effectively the CQC is not delivering on its operational performance. It’s not delivering for people that use services and patients.”

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: The Times, 1 February 2025

Read more
 

Care home residents diagnosed with latent TB

Dozens of residents and staff at a care home have been diagnosed with the latent form of tuberculosis (TB) after a nurse was found to have the disease.

Tests are being carried out at The Grange in Gloucestershire to see if any of the people diagnosed have developed the active form of the infection.

Public Health England (PHE) said the nurse had since been treated and was no longer infectious.

Read full story

Source: BBC news, 3 October 2019

Read more
 

Care home resident died after unqualified nurse administered wrong medication

A nurse with no qualifications gave a care home resident a fatal dose of the wrong drug, leading to her death before she then tried to cover up her mistake.

Katherine Hutchinson gave Fiona Jayne Thorne a fatal overdose of a powerful anti-psychotic drug, which was meant for another patient, an inquest heard.

She then tried to cover up her errors which contributed to the death of the 36-year-old with learning difficulties, Derbyshire Live reported .

Ms Hutchinson had, at the time, been the nurse in charge at Whitwell Park Care Home, in Whitwell, Derbyshire despite not having any qualifications.

She gave Miss Thorne clozapine, which had been intended for another resident, on October 6, 2010.

Instead of owning up to what she did, Ms Hutchinson then tried to cover up her mistake by taking Miss Thorne to bed and leaving her there until she was discovered, Senior Coroner Dr Robert Hunter said.

Miss Thorne was "found by the care support worker around midnight, when undertaking routine checks on residents”, the inquest heard.

And then Ms Hutchinson’s mistake was only discovered after an audit was carried out of the medication trolley and a dosage of clozapine was found.

Read full story

Source: Mirror, 8 April 2022

Read more

Care home manager struck off over 'horrific' restraining of disabled person

A care home manager in Ayrshire has been struck off after inappropriately and unnecessarily restraining a disabled person for a vaccine injection.

A tribunal hearing heard that Janette Donnelly's use of force was "horrific" and resulted in scenes of chaos at Millport Care Centre on 19 February 2021.

The jab ended up being administered through the resident's clothes, following which Donnelly told a colleague that she would not report that it had been injected that way.

The Nursing and Midwifery Council ruled her actions were a significant departure from the standards expected of nurses and she had repeatedly given a "dishonest and self serving" account of the day to justify her actions.

A registered NHS nurse had visited the care home on the day to administer the Covid-19 vaccine to people staying there.

The resident, described in the hearing as Service User A, had a learning disability and at times restraints were used to allow her to be fed, but these were only meant to be for brief periods of time.

She was due to receive her second vaccination but two attempts to do so in the building's dining room earlier that day had not gone ahead.

Instead, the vaccine was given in the resident's bedroom while she was being held on the floor Donnelly and two other staff members. Evidence to the panel said the woman was shouting, screaming and struggling.

One witness stated that she would never forget the sight she was confronted with, that it was a "horrific" scene, and that Donnelly had restrained the person's head with her hands.

Donnelly told the NHS nurse to carry out the injection through the resident's clothing.

After this happened the colleague said to Donnelly, "please don't tell anyone I've administered the vaccine in this way", to which Donnelly said "of course I won't".

Donnelly claimed she was unaware the vaccine had been given through the clothing, which the panel did not agree with. It ruled her actions in not reporting this were dishonest.

The panel also ruled that the vaccine did not have to be given on that day, and the nurse could have visited at another time.

It concluded that Donnelly's actions "placed Service User A at a risk of physical harm, and both Service User A and your colleagues at a risk of emotional harm".

Read full story

Source: BBC News, 27 April 2026

Read more

Care home killing: No risk assessment done on attacker

No formal risk assessment was done on a man who beat a fellow care home resident to death, a review has found.

Alexander Rawson attacked 93-year-old Eileen Dean with a metal walking stick at a care home in south-east London. Mrs Dean suffered catastrophic injuries to her head and body and died later in hospital.

A review found Fieldside Care Home in Catford did not provide the specialist mental health services that Rawson - who had a history of violence - needed.

Rawson, who had a history of mental health problems caused by alcoholism, was 62 when he was placed in the home a few days before Christmas 2020.

He was put in the room next to Mrs Dean and, in the first week of 2021, he went into her room at night and attacked her.

In a review published on Friday, the Lewisham Safeguarding Adults Board said Rawson had been moved into the home after being an inpatient at a psychiatric unit run by the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.

The care home was the only place that agreed to take him after his discharge from hospital.

In the months before he was moved into the care home, Rawson was involved in at least 34 recorded incidents of violence or threats to patients and health staff, including a threat to kill.

Before he was placed in the home, no attempts were made to find out whether Rawson had come into contact with the criminal justice system over his behaviour, the report found.

It states that the care home had asked about the risks Rawson posed before they took him and had been reassured by a social worker and medical staff.

Read full story

Source: BBC News, 12 November 2022

Read more

Care for allergy patients ‘inadequate’, report warns

There is a “lack” of NHS services available to people with allergies, a group of MPs has said.

Despite increasing rates of hospital admissions for severe allergic reactions – also known as anaphylaxis – allergy services “have largely been ignored”, the All Party Parliamentary Group for Allergy said.

The group warned allergies are “poorly managed” across the health service due to a “lack of training” and only a small number of allergy experts.

“This mismatch has continued despite millions of patients having significant allergic disease,” it said.

In its latest report, which is to be delivered to Government on Wednesday, MPs said there are 20 million people in the UK who are living with allergic disease, including five million whose illness is severe enough to need specialist care.

“Yet our allergy services remain inadequate, often hard to access and are failing those who need them the most,” the report adds.

The group made a series of recommendations including: devising a “national allergy plan” to address problems; expanding the specialist workforce and ensuring all GPs get training in how to deal with allergies.

Read full story

Source: ITV News, 27 October 2021

Read more
 

Care firm's leadership criticised by Care Quality Commission

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has raised concerns about the treatment of patients at mental health units run by Cygnet. It follows inspections in the wake of a BBC Panorama investigation about alleged abuse at Wharlton Hall in County Durham.

The CQC found that patients under the firm's care were more likely to be restrained. Higher rates of self-harm were also noted by inspectors who quizzed managers and analysed records at the company's headquarters.

The regulator also found a lack of clear lines of accountability between the executive team and its services. It said directors' identity and disclosure and barring service checks had been carried out, butd that required checks had not been made to ensure that directors and board members met the "fit and proper" person test for their roles.

Systems used to manage risk were also criticised, while training for intermediate life support was not provided to all relevant staff across services where physical intervention or rapid tranquilisation was used.

Cygnet runs more than 100 services for vulnerable adults and children, caring for people with mental health problems, learning disabilities and eating disorders.

The CQC says Cygnet must now take immediate action to address the concerns raised.

Cygnet said a number of the services highlighted have since been improved, but "we are not complacent and take on board recommendations where we must improve".

Read full story

Source: BBC News, 14 January 2020

Read more

Cardiovascular health has been going in the wrong direction, says NHS review

Progress tackling cardiovascular diseases stalled under the Conservatives and is now in decline, a damning review into the NHS will find this week.

A “warts and all” probe into the health service ordered by health secretary Wes Streeting is to say cardiovascular health has been going in the wrong direction, with the British Heart Foundation describing the picture as “extremely concerning”.

Former health minister Ara Darzi, who has carried out the review, is expected to say: “Once adjusted for age, the cardiovascular disease mortality rate for people aged under 75 dropped significantly between 2001 and 2010.

“But improvements have stalled since then and the mortality rate started rising again during the Covid-19 pandemic.”

And, in its own submission to the investigation, the British Heart Foundation said: “We are extremely concerned that the significant progress made on heart disease and circulatory diseases (CVD) in the last 50 years is beginning to reverse. The number of people dying before the age of 75 in England from CVD has risen to the highest level in 14 years.”

Read full story

Source: The Independent, 8 September 2024

Read more
 

Cardiologist who fitted wrong pacemaker and destroyed patient notes is struck off

A cardiologist has been struck off the UK medical register after he failed to check a patient’s medical notes before surgery, implanted the wrong type of pacemaker, and then destroyed the notes specifying the correct type.

Amer Chit, a locum consultant cardiologist at Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust, admitted to a trust investigation that, before implanting the pacemaker, he had looked at the operating list but not at the patient’s medical notes.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: BMJ, 23 August 2019

Read more

Cardiff: Women 'treated differently' due to ethnicity at hospital

There is evidence of black, Asian and minority ethnic women being treated differently at the University Hospital of Wales, Healthcare Inspectorate Wales (HIW) has said.

HIW completed an inspection of UHW's maternity services in November 2022 and served an urgent improvement notice.

A follow up inspection in March found continuing issues with patient safety.

The inspectorate said in November that it identified issues which meant that patients were not consistently receiving an "acceptable standard of timely, safe, and effective care".

Although "some improvements had been made in many areas... there remained significant challenges, and overall, the improvements were not progressing at the pace required", it said.

The report added: "We found low morale amongst staff that we spoke to, and similar comments were received following a staff survey.

Read full story

Source: BBC News, 22 June 2023

Read more

Cardiff University designated as WHO Collaborating Centre for Patient Safety, Learning and Improvement

Cardiff University’s Division of Population Medicine has been officially designated as the WHO Collaborating Centre for Patient Safety, Learning and Improvement, under the leadership of Professor Andrew Carson-Stevens, Professor of Patient Safety. 

The new Centre’s technical remit is to support WHO in drawing lessons from Member States’ implementation of the “WHO Global patient safety action plan 2021–2030” and supporting WHO’s work on patient safety incident reporting and learning systems. Professor Carson-Stevens and his team have previously supported WHO in producing the most recent “Global patient safety report 2024”. 

Speaking about the designation, Professor Carson-Stevens said, “This is a significant moment for Cardiff University and for global health. Patient safety challenges are universal, but solutions emerge when Member States learn with, from and about each other’s experiences. By working together, guided by the Global patient safety action plan, we can strengthen systems, reduce avoidable harm and ultimately save lives. Our Centre is committed to supporting WHO and its Member States in this shared mission.” 

The Collaborating Centre will be formally launched on World Patient Safety Day (17 September 2025), which this year has a global theme of “Safe care for every newborn and every child”. 

“This collaboration will serve as a force multiplier in our global efforts to improve patient safety. Cardiff University’s WHO Collaborating Centre will play a vital role in strengthening the capacity to learn from patient safety data and incident reports, turning information into meaningful insights and concrete actions. This is essential for countries and health-care facilities working to implement the WHO Global patient safety action plan 2021–2030 and eliminate avoidable harm in health care,” said Dr. Nikhil Prakash Gupta, Responsible Technical Officer for Patient Safety and Quality of Care at WHO.

To reflect the theme of World Patient Safety Day, the launch of the new Centre will highlight recent findings by Cardiff University researchers on the role of parents in protecting children from harm in health-care settings.

A recent study published in the British Journal of General Practice analysed national patient safety incident reports involving children. It revealed that, in nearly 77% of cases, parents took proactive steps, such as identifying medication issues, chasing delayed referrals or raising concerns to protect their children from harm. Parent actions helped avert or reduce harm in more than half of the incidents reviewed.  

The research underscores the vital role parents play as partners in safer care, particularly as children are more vulnerable to health-care-related harm and depend on parents and caregivers to advocate on their behalf. The study calls for greater collaboration between health-care providers and parents to co-design safer systems and improve patient safety outcomes for children. 

Read full story

Source: WHO, 15 September 2025

Read more
 

Cardiac arrest: Thousands of defibrillators unknown to 999 service

Tens of thousands of defibrillators across the UK risk being unusable because 999 call handlers do not know about them.

When someone has a cardiac arrest, ambulance staff can only direct bystanders to the nearest defibrillator if it is on a central register.

"That could be the difference between life and death," said Adam Fletcher, head of British Heart Foundation Cymru.

A campaign to register defibrillators on The Circuit has now been launched.

Survival rates are low in the more than 30,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests each year in the UK, according to the British Heart Foundation (BHF) - with fewer than one in 10 people surviving.

BHF said early CPR and defibrillation could double the chances of surviving and it was often down to 999 call handlers being aware that a defibrillator was nearby.

"If we don't know a defibrillator is there, we can't send somebody to get it, to potentially save somebody's life," said Carl Powell, the clinical support lead for cardiac care with the Welsh Ambulance Service.

Read full story

Source: BBC News, 22 October 2021

Read more

Candida auris: deadly fungal infections spreading across US at ‘worrisome’ rate

Potentially deadly fungal infections with Candida auris are spreading rapidly in US healthcare facilities, with cases nearly doubling between 2020 and 2021, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said.

The number of cases rose by 44% to 476 in 2019, up from 330 in 2018, and subsequently by 59% to 756 in 2020 and by an additional 95% to 1,471 in 2021, the agency’s researchers reported on Monday in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Also concerning was a tripling in 2021 of the number of cases that were resistant to echinocandins, the class of drugs most often recommended for treatment of the disease.

The most common Candida auris symptoms include a high fever and chills that do not improve after antibiotic treatment for suspected bacterial infections, according to guidelines from the CDC. Additional symptoms can develop if the infection spreads.

Dr Waleed Javaid – an epidemiologist, infectious disease expert and director of infection prevention and control at New York’s Mount Sinai Downtown – told NBC News that the new findings were “worrisome”.

Read full story

Source: The Guardian, 21 March 2023

Read more

Cancers getting diagnosed at earlier stage

The proportion of patients diagnosed with cancer at an early stage has risen to its highest level on record, NHS figures in England show.

Data for the 13 most common cancers show 58.7% of those diagnosed between September 2023 and August 2024 were identified at stages one and two, which increases the chances of survival.

That is 2.7 percentage points up since before the pandemic – and the highest since records began more than 10 years ago.

NHS England said a combination of public awareness campaigns and new screening approaches has made a big difference.

But despite the progress England is still struggling to achieve its ambition of diagnosing 75% of cancer at stages one and two by 2028.

And the NHS is also failing to hit its target for starting treatment quickly – nearly one in three people diagnosed with cancer wait longer than 62 days from an urgent referral.

According to a Nuffield Trust report, external last year these are all factors in why cancer survival rates in the UK lag behind many other comparable countries.

Read full story

Source: BBC News, 2 January 2025

Read more
 

Cancers detected by screening services fall by over 60%

The number of patients with cancer referred from screening services has fallen to nearly a third of pre-covid levels, new data shows.

A total of 2,604 patients had their cancer picked up by screening services between April to July. This compares to 7,204 in the same period last year.

The NHS England data covers patients receiving treatment within two months of a referral from screening services. This means the April 2020 data is largely from screening carried out before cOVID-19 saw services being shut down.

From May to July this year, 1,243 patients were treated after a referral from screening services, compared to 5,406 in the same period last time.

NHS England which commissions screening services from trusts said no central decision had been taken to halt screening at the height of the outbreak but said: “We know that some local providers did take the decision to pause and in those cases plans are in place to get services fully up and running again.”

The national screening programmes look for bowel, breast and cervical cancers.

Head of policy at Macmillan Cancer Support Sara Bainbridge said: ”Behind every missed target is a real person whose prognosis and treatment options could be severely impacted by these delays. It’s vital that people see their GP if they have symptoms, and anyone who is worried about cancer needs to know that they’ll be seen promptly and safely."

“Cancer must not become the forgotten ‘C’ during this pandemic – we urgently need the government to deliver the promised recovery plan and make sure the NHS has all the staffing and resources it needs to get cancer services back on track.”

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 10 September 2020

 

Read more
 

Cancer: Urgent action needed amid NHS pressures, warns charity

The Covid-19 pandemic cannot continue being blamed for poor cancer care, a charity boss has said.

Judi Rhys, of Tenovus Cancer Care, said urgent action was needed to save lives when more people than ever are living with cancer in Wales.

It comes as the Wales Cancer Network publishes a three-year plan to improve cancer outcomes and patient experience.

But the group's clinical director warned the immediate priority would be maintaining current services.

Prof Tom Crosby, clinical director for Wales Cancer Network, which was tasked by Wales' health minister to draw up the improvement plan, said the biggest pinch point at the moment was access to diagnostics.

"We're absolutely trying to shorten overall times for patients coming into the system being diagnosed and then being treated," he said.

On average in November, people suspected of having cancer had to wait 17 days for a first appointment and 23 days for a first test.

It was an average 31 days from point of suspicion to being told if they had cancer or not and an average 24 days from point of diagnosis to treatment starting.

"We hope that this year we will develop the first regional diagnostic centre and that is likely to be in south-east Wales," Prof Crosby said.

Read full story

Source: BBC News, 31 January 2023

Read more
 

Cancer: Neck lump patient in robot surgery first

Pioneering robotic surgery to remove hard-to-reach head and neck cancers has been performed in Wales for the first time.

More than 20 patients a year from across Wales are expected to benefit from the new service at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff.

Surgeons use a precision robot with several arms to remove tumours and improve the chances of recovery. The first patient is recovering well from his operation in December.

A human surgeon's wrist can turn 180 degrees, whereas the robot's four 'hands' can rotate four or five times.

This dexterity reduces the need for more invasive surgery – in some cases this might have involved breaking the jaw open – and patients can recover much more quickly.

Read full story

Source: BBC News, 14 February 2020

Read more

Cancer: Blood test for 50 types to be trialled by NHS

A blood test designed to detect more than 50 types of cancer at an early stage will be trialled by the NHS.

More than 165,000 people in England will be offered the tests from next year. If successful, the NHS hopes to expand it to 1m people from 2024.

Sir Simon Stevens, NHS England chief executive, said early detection had the potential "to save many lives".

While some welcomed the pilot, others cautioned the test was still untried and untested.

Developing a blood test for cancer has been keeping scientists busy for many years without much success.

Making one that's accurate and reliable has proved incredibly complex - the danger is that a test doesn't detect a person's cancer when they do have it, or it indicates someone has cancer when they don't.

This test, developed by the Californian firm Grail, is designed to detect molecular changes in the blood caused by cancer in people with no obvious symptoms.

As part of a large-scale pilot, also funded by the company, 140,000 participants aged between 50 and 79 will be asked to take the tests for the next three years.

Another 25,000 people with possible cancer symptoms will also be offered testing after being referred to hospital in the normal way.

Read full story

Source: BBC News, 27 November 2020

Read more

Cancer warnings could be put on all breast implants a decade on from scandal that left women 'dying in silence'

Ministers are considering putting a cancer warning on all breast implants a decade after women had ‘a cocktail of chemicals intended for mattresses’ put into their bodies.

Experts and MPs are calling for tighter regulation and better support after the PIP faulty breast implant scandal left women – including breast cancer survivors – ‘suffering and dying in silence’.

Health minister Maria Caulfield pledged on Monday to consider a so-called ‘black-box’ warning on breast implant packaging like in the US.

It came during a debate on the faulty breast implant scandal which saw 47,000 British women given ‘ticking time bomb’ implants made by Poly Implant Prothese (PIP).

PIP implants were outlawed in 2010 when they were revealed to be made with substandard silicone and up to six times more likely to rupture.

Victims of the scandal have reported a wide range of serious side-effects as experts say they are linked to a raft of health problems including the new form of cancer.

Anyone with a PIP implant can officially apply to have it removed by the NHS, but Labour MP Fleur Anderson said: ‘Many applications have been turned down, leaving women with a ticking time bomb in their body.

‘They are unable to afford to get their implants removed privately, are worried that they will rupture further, and are experiencing clear side-effects.’

The MHRA acknowledged the risk of cancer for all breast implants but said PIP implants are not at greater risk than any other. 

Read full story

Source Mail Online, 31 January 2023

Read more

Cancer waiting times: “We have our foot on the gas,” says NHS England’s cancer lead

NHS England’s national cancer director has said that she is “cautiously optimistic” about reaching cancer waiting time targets by March 2023, but she refused to be drawn on what had happened to the government’s proposed 10 year cancer plan.

Cally Palmer was speaking to MPs on the Health and Social Care Committee at a special one-off session on the urgent challenges facing cancer services, including workforce shortages, winter pressures, and poor performance.

Latest figures from September, published on 10 November, show that 60.5% of patients began their first treatment within 62 days of being urgently referred for suspected cancer, against a target of 85%. That target was pushed back to March 2023 from March this year.

Palmer told the committee on 23 November that the 85% target aimed to reduce the 62-day backlog to pre-pandemic levels.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: BMJ, 24 November 2022

Read more

Cancer waiting times in 2023 worst on record in England

Cancer waiting times for 2023 in England were the worst on record, a BBC News analysis has revealed.

Only 64.1% of patients started treatment within 62 days of cancer being suspected, meaning nearly 100,000 waited longer than they should for life-saving care. The waits have worsened every year for the past 11.

Macmillan Cancer Support chief executive Gemma Peters called the figures "shocking".

"This marks a new low and highlights the desperate situation for people living with cancer," she said.

"Behind the figures are real lives being turned upside down, with thousands of people waiting far too long to find out if they have cancer and to begin their treatment, causing additional anxiety at what is already a very difficult time.

"With over three million people in the UK living with cancer and an ageing population, this is only set to rise."

The records go back to 2010, shortly after the cancer target was introduced.

However, improvements have been made over the course of 2023 in how quickly patients are diagnosed with 72% told whether they have cancer or not within 28 days of an urgent referral.

Read full story

Source: BBC News, 8 February 2024

Read more
 

Cancer waiting list has almost doubled, leak reveals

The waiting list for cancer patients has almost doubled over the last seven months, according to internal NHS data which has never been made public.

A slide set seen by HSJ suggests the total number of patients waiting for cancer treatment on the 62-day pathway has increased from around 90,000 in mid-May, to around 160,000 at the start of December.

However, the data suggests the NHS has made good progress in treating patients waiting the longest.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 15 December 2020

Read more

© 2026 Patient Safety Learning. All rights reserved.

Patient Safety Learning is registered as a charity with the Charity Commission Registration number 1180689.

×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.