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Cancer treatment delayed as patient priority lists drawn up

Delays have begun to cancer treatments, as patients are reprioritised ahead of capacity becoming overwhelmed by the coronavirus crisis.

In three separate developments:

  • A London trust announced it was cancelling chemotherapy and routine cancer operations for a fortnight due to coronavirus pressure;
  • An NHS England covid-19 guidance document indicated palliative care cancer patients will be less likely to receive appropriate treatment; and
  • Cancer waiting times guidance has been changed to provide for some urgent referrals for suspected cancer to be sent back to GPs without diagnosis.

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Source: HSJ, 23 March 2020

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Cancer treatment ‘biased against ethnic minorities’

A type of cancer treatment used in the NHS appears to be biased against non white European patients, research has found.

A review by the NHS Race and Health Observatory in partnership with Liverpool University – findings from which have been shared with HSJ –  looked into crucial genetic tests carried out before a type of drugs to treat cancer (fluoropyrimidines) is administered.

If a patient has certain gene variants, using the medicines can harm them, leading to severe side-effects that affect the bone marrow, bowel and skin, and in some cases can cause death. If the variants are present, other treatments have to be used.

However, the research by the RHO found that the NHS is testing for four variants, which are typically found in white Europeans. But the researchers found 53 additional relevant variants, which are not tested for, were present in patients from 12 countries and five ethnic groups – African American, East Asian, Latin American, Middle Eastern and South Asian.

Although their two-year research project is still ongoing, the RHO and Liverpool University team have decided to issue a call for an extension of this type of genetic testing (which seeks to identify a deficiency of the dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase enzyme). A further recommendation for genetic testing for a variant found in those from African backgrounds is now under NHS review, which could be included in the National Genomic Test Directory, the RHO said.

RHO chief executive Professor Habib Naqvi said, “There is a duty to ensure every patient has access to the best available treatment when they are unwell."

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Source: HSJ, 26 July 2024

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Cancer tests and virtual wards targeted for new cuts

Recently-opened cancer testing centres and virtual wards will be among the services cut back as the NHS seeks to eliminate a £6.6bn forecast deficit, senior leaders have told HSJ.

Plans also include restricting treatments, extending waiting times, de-funding the third sector, and significant job cuts for clinicians as well as managers.

HSJ asked NHS trust and commissioner CEOs and finance directors across the country what actions would be required in their organisation, after NHSE last week demanded they “get a grip” of deficits and “accelerate” decisions.

Cost-cutting measures being proposed or considered locally include:

  • Closing community diagnostic centres (CDCs), and cancelling plans for more CDCs. 
  • Closing or reducing the size of virtual wards, whose expansion since Covid-19 has been repeatedly declared as one of the most significant reforms to shift care out of hospital.
  • Cuts to schemes to carry out more elective work, including reducing out-of-hours “waiting list initiative” sessions and cancelling planned “elective hubs”. 
  • Cutting staff numbers, most often corporate and non-clinical, but in some areas extending to reductions to clinical staff.
  • Extending waiting times for planned operations and treatment, especially for procedures which currently have short waits, such as ophthalmology, which are often provided by the private sector. One CEO said it required “rationing of care” in these areas. There will be further delays and limiting of patients’ “right to choose” to use private services which diagnose autism and ADHD.

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Source: HSJ, 10 March 2025

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Cancer test and treatment delays in UK have put ‘100,000 lives at risk’ since 2014

At least 100,000 people across the UK have had their lives put at risk over the last decade because of delays to them getting tested or treated for cancer, a new report claims.

In some cases, patients’ treatment options narrowed or their cancer spread or became incurable as a direct result of their long waits for NHS care, according to Macmillan Cancer Support.

The “inhumane” impact of delays on patients is “shameful”, it said, blaming ministers across the four home nations for underfunding and not tackling staff shortages in cancer services.

“I’ve had patients arrive for their radical chemotherapy appointment, who wait three hours only to be told that because of staff shortages we can’t deliver their treatment today. It’s inhumane”, said Naman Julka-Anderson, an advanced practice therapeutic radiographer who is also an allied health professional clinical adviser for Macmillan.

Many waited longer than 62 days to start treatment – surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy – after a GP referred them as an urgent case, the charity’s analysis of official NHS data found.

At least 100,000 of those 180,000 people have seen their symptoms worsen, or their cancer progress or their chances reduce of successfully being treated because they have had to wait.

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Source: The Guardian, 20 June 2023

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Cancer survivors may be at heightened risk of cardiovascular disease

People who survive cancer may be at heightened risk of cardiovascular disease in subsequent years, data suggests.

However, heart scans may identify early heart damage, potentially opening the door to more tailored follow-up care for cancer survivors.

Although previous studies have suggested that people who have been treated for cancer may be at greater risk of future cardiovascular problems such as stroke or heart failure, these have mainly focused on the first year after a cancer diagnosis. Few have looked at longer term risks or included cardiovascular imaging to pinpoint damage that has not yet resulted in symptoms.

To plug these gaps, Dr Zahra Raisi-Estabragh at Queen Mary University of London and her colleagues assessed the cardiovascular health of 18,714 UK Biobank participants with a previous diagnosis of lung, breast, prostate, blood, womb or bowel cancer, and compared them with an equal number of participants with no cancer history, tracking their cardiovascular health for nearly 12 years.

Almost a third of cancer survivors developed a cardiovascular problem during the study period, compared with a quarter of people in the control group.

“This study adds to existing knowledge about the impact of some cancer treatments on cardiovascular disease in cancer survivors,” said Martin Ledwick, the head information nurse at Cancer Research UK.

“It may help to inform strategies for how some cancer survivors need to be monitored long-term, especially in situations where they have been discharged from cancer follow-up to the care of their GPs.”

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Source: The Guardian, 18 April 2023

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Cancer survivor urges people not to ignore symptoms and get checked by GP

A Nottingham mum recovering from breast cancer surgery said she 'hates to think' what could have happened, if she had let the cancer go undetected.

Claire Knee, 45 of Beeston, was diagnosed with breast cancer in March shortly before lockdown measures were introduced.

Having felt slightly off and noticing lumps in her breast, she was encouraged to contact her GP who referred her for tests. After a serious of diagnostic tests at Nottingham City Hospital's Breast Institute, specialists confirmed the presence of a tumour in the early stages. Surgeons successfully removed the tumour from her right breast amid the pandemic and Claire has been recommended some follow up treatment.

She now wants to share her experience of seeking help and getting treatment to advise others who may be showing signs of cancer but are too scared to contact their GP.  

"Looking back I just think that if I hadn’t made the call to my GP I would be walking around with undetected breast cancer, which could still be growing now. I would urge anyone in similar circumstances to contact their GP and get checked - even if it’s just for peace of mind.”

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Source: Nottinghamshire Live, 4 May

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Cancer survival in the UK improving, but lagging behind

Cancer survival in the UK is on the up, but is still lagging behind other high-income countries, analysis suggests.

Five-year survival rates for rectal and colon cancer improved the most since 1995, and pancreatic cancer the least. Advances in treatment and surgery are thought to be behind the UK's progress.

But the UK still performed worse than Australia, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand and Norway, the study in Lancet Oncology found. Cancer Research UK said the UK could do better and called for more "investment in the NHS and the systems and innovations that support it".

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Source: BBC News, 12 September 2019

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Cancer spending threatened if NHS staff given 3% pay rise without extra funds

The NHS will have to cut investment in cancer care if ministers award frontline staff a pay rise above 3% but refuse to provide extra money to cover it, health service bosses have warned.

The NHS England chief executive, Amanda Pritchard, and Julian Kelly, its chief financial officer, made clear their belief that soaring inflation means the service’s 1.3 million staff deserve a pay award of more than the 3% the government has already given the organisation funding to cover.

But they warned that any increase above that would force it to cut services, including primary care and the planned new nationwide network of centres intended to diagnose killer diseases early – unless the Treasury covers the cost of the higher amount.

If ministers do award staff more, then the 3% originally planned “we would then be looking at having to … cut back on investment in our major areas, when our major areas are primary care, cancer care, or indeed at the margin … some big capital investments. In fact we were just talking about the diagnostic centres [intended to spot cancer and other illnesses sooner]", said Kelly.

“[A] pay settlement higher than 3% and no extra money would entail some really difficult decisions.” It is “not realistic” to expect the NHS to absorb any extra costs, he added.

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Source: The Guardian, 7 July 2022

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Cancer screening take ups not back to pre-pandemic levels, charity warns

A health charity has sounded the alarm over a dip in the proportion of people taking up the offer for cancer screening as figures show how effective the tests are at catching cancers early.

Breast, bowel and cervical cancer screening programmes have jointly spotted nearly 90,000 cancers between 2019 and 2023, according to analysis by Cancer Research UK (CRUK).

This includes 62,000 cases of breast cancer, 23,000 cases of bowel cancer and 4,400 cases of cervical cancer.

But the charity expressed concern over dwindling screening participation for breast and cervical cancer tests.

About 70% of eligible people take up the offer for bowel cancer screening, 69% of those invited take part in cervical cancer screening and 65% take part in breast cancer screening.

The charity said that the proportion of people taking up the offer to check their breasts has not reached the levels they were before the pandemic – 71.1% took up the offer in 2019.

Cervical cancer screening has steadily declined over the last decade – from 74.2% in 2014 to 68.7% in 2023.

CRUK has called for action to make screening easier to access for people in England, such as by letting people book out of hours.

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Source: The Guardian, 19 December 2024

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Cancer screening reporting errors led to mum's death

The family of a mother who died from cervical cancer after twice being wrongly told she had negative results have been awarded undisclosed damages.

The misreporting of Louise Gleadell's cervical screening results was admitted by University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust following her death aged 38 in March 2018.

An internal review in 2017 found the samples, taken four years apart, were not good enough to produce reliable results but neither Ms Gleadell - a mum to three boys - nor her relatives were told about the "inadequate" samples while she was still alive.

Her family have now been given an undisclosed payout, with the trust apologising for its mistakes that had "devastating consequences".

Ms Gleadell, from Cossington in Leicestershire, was diagnosed with cervical cancer two years prior to her death. It was, by that stage, too late to have surgery.

Two cervical screening tests, carried out in 2008 and 2012, were misreported to her as negative.

It meant that over a four-year period, she had been given false reassurance about her health when she was developing cervical cancer, and the opportunity to treat pre-cancerous cells passed.

Ms Gleadell's sisters, Laura and Clare Gleadell, say their grief has been compounded by knowing that their sister's death was avoidable.

Laura, 43, said: "Her death was preventable and that for us is ultimately really hard.

"It would not have developed into cancer had she been recalled in either 2008 or 2012.

"If she had had treatment for cell abnormalities before it even developed into cancer, she would not have died."

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Source: BBC News, 6 April 2025

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Cancer referrals are being rejected by hospitals, GPs warn

Suspected cancer patients are being refused hospital appointments despite being referred by GPs, it has emerged.

Family doctors working for one NHS trust in north east London claimed that hundreds of referrals had been rejected in recent weeks.

Many were for ultrasounds and chest X-rays and were sent via the two-week wait system, in which suspected cancer patients referred by GPs are seen within a fortnight.

A rejection letter sent from Whipps Cross hospital seen by Pulse magazine, said the referral had been “due to the Covid-19 pandemic”. 

It added: “Following triage by a consultant radiologist, your imaging request has been assessed as non-urgent and cancelled.”

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Source: The Telegraph (18 May 202)

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Cancer recovery target will be missed, says national leader

The NHS will miss its target to return cancer treatment waits to pre-covid levels by next March, a national cancer leader has said.

When asked at the HSJ Cancer Forum whether the service would be back to “business as usual” performance by next spring, Liz Bishop, who sits on NHS England’s national cancer board, said: “I think it depends on what you mean by ‘business as usual’.

“If you mean hitting the 62-day numbers, and the 104-day numbers, by next March, then no. If I am honest, I don’t think we will.

“Do I know when that date will be? No, I don’t know. But what I do know is that everyone is working really hard to do it and get there.”

NHSE initially said the number of patients waiting longer than 62 days for treatment following an urgent referral would return to pre-pandemic levels by March this year, but has since pushed this back to March 2023.

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Source: HSJ, 18 March 2022

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Cancer rates in men will increase by a whopping 84% over the next three decades, researchers say

Cancer rates in men are expected to skyrocket in the next few decades, a new study reveals.

Cancer rates in men are projected to jump by 84% from 2022 to 2050, while cancer deaths are expected to increase by 93.2% over the same time frame, according to the peer-reviewed study published in an American Cancer Society’s research journal.

This gender disparity is in part because men are exposed more often to risk factors, such as smoking and drinking alcohol, according to the study. Men are also exposed to more cancer-causing workplace hazards, such as harmful chemicals, radiation and asbestos, than women, according to the study.

The researchers also noted that there are more early-detection options for cancers that impact women, like cervical cancer.

“There are no comparable programs for male-specific cancers, such as prostate or testicular cancer,” according to the study.

The authors made several recommendations to ensure cancer deaths among men decrease moving forward.

Their recommendations include promoting early-detection programs for testicular and prostate cancers, implementing universal healthcare and passing stronger regulations to protect employees from workplace hazards.

These steps “are crucial to reducing cancer disparities and ensuring cancer equity among men globally,” according to the study.

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Source: The Independent, 13 August 2024

 

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Cancer patients’ scans will be cancelled over ‘severe’ supply shortages of vital chemical, minister warns

Cancer scans will be delayed and cancelled due to a “severe” shortage of a chemical which has left hospitals with “no supply at all”, a government minister has warned.

The Department of Health and Social Care issued a critical alert on Friday over the “severe shortage” of a radioactive chemical needed for the diagnosis of thousands of cancers, including prostate and breast cancer.

The fresh alert comes after The Independent revealed warnings from doctors and specialists in August that cancer care had been hit by a “perfect” storm in shortages of radioisotopes. Experts at the British Nuclear Medicine Society told The Independent at the time hundreds of cancer scans were being cancelled due to worsening shortages.

Now minister Karin Smyth has admitted the fresh shortage will lead to delays in access to care and cancellations as officials have been unable to mitigate the impact of the shortages.

The shortage comes after pharmaceutical supplier, Curium, was forced to stop production of a nuclear product that is needed to create Technetium-99m, a radioactive chemcial used in diagnostic imaging.

As a result of the shortage, clinicians are having to prioritise patients needing the most urgent scans, while hospitals have been called on to aid one another.

The shortage is expected to last for at least four weeks.

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Cancer patients waiting over 104 days for treatment as data shows the NHS trusts failing to meet crucial target

Nearly all NHS trusts across England are failing to meet a crucial cancer treatment target, with some of the poorest performing trusts only managing to treat around half of their patients within the stipulated timeframe.

New data reveals significant disparities between trusts, with some individuals enduring waits exceeding 104 days.

The long-established NHS benchmark mandates that 85 per cent of cancer patients should commence treatment within 62 days of their referral. However, this national target has not been achieved since 2014. In response to the ongoing challenges, the government has set an interim goal for this figure to reach 75 per cent by March 2026.

The new analysis of NHS England figures shows just three of 119 acute trusts with comparable data hit or surpassed the 85% target last year, while only around a quarter made it above 75%.

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Source: The Independent, 25 February 2026

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Cancer patients to pay heavy price for checks lost to lockdown

Five-year survival rates are expected to fall due to delays in getting urgent referrals or treatment at the height of the pandemic.

Thousands of lives may be lost to cancer because 250,000 patients were not referred to hospital for urgent checks, says a report to be published this week. Family doctors made 339,242 urgent cancer referrals in England between April and June, down from 594,060 in the same period last year — a drop of 43%.

The fall in the number of people seeing their GP with symptoms, and in referrals for scans, is resulting in cancers being spotted too late, according to the research by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) and Carnall Farrar, a healthcare management consultancy.

Full article on The Times website here (paywalled).

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Cancer patients reluctant to bother overworked NHS staff

Cancer patients are suffering side-effects of treatment in silence because they are afraid of bothering overworked NHS staff, a new survey reveals.

More than two thirds of newly diagnosed cancer patients questioned by Macmillan Cancer Support said they are not getting all the help they need - estimated to be about 300,000 people across the UK.

About a fifth of the 6,905 people in the survey said the healthcare professionals caring for them seemed to have "unmanageable" workloads.

These patients were a third more likely to have physical and emotional needs that were not being addressed, such as depression, anxiety, pain and trouble sleeping, the charity said.

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Source: The Telegraph, 22 October 2019

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Cancer patients pushed to ‘breaking point’ as overstretched nurses struggle with high workload

Cancer patients are being pushed to “breaking point” because of a lack of support from overstretched nurses and carers, a leading charity has warned.

Almost half of specialist cancer nurses have told the Macmillan Cancer Support charity that their high workload was having a negative impact on patient care, while one in five people diagnosed with the disease say the staff responsible for their care have unmanageable demands.

Now the charity says this is affecting patients, with thousands calling its specialist support helpline in distress and worried because they feel they can’t get answers from their health workers.

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Source: The Independent, 31 December 2019

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Cancer patients not getting right treatment, say doctors

Senior doctors responsible for monitoring cancer care in England and Wales are concerned failings in NHS services are contributing to up to half of patients not getting the right treatment for some cancers.

In evidence provided to the BBC, the National Cancer Audit Collaborating Centre (NatCan), external highlighted particular problems with prostate, kidney and colon cancers.

The expert group said it had found significant variation between hospitals and warned the problems accessing nationally-recommended treatments were putting lives at risk.

It carries out audits across nine major cancers - responsible for 80% of cases - and has found shortfalls across a range of different cancer types and stages.

Figures shared with the BBC show:

  • 30% of patients with high-risk prostate cancer do not get curative treatment with either surgery or radiotherapy, with performance varying between 20% and 43% across different services.
  • 34% of stage three colon cancer cases do not get chemotherapy within three months of surgery – at some hospitals the numbers exceed 60%.
  • 50% of stage four renal cell carcinoma patients, a type of kidney cancer that has spread to other parts of the body, do not get drug treatment – with performance varying between 20% and 85%.

NatCan said while a minority of patients would be choosing not to have treatment themselves and others may not be well enough, that could not fully explain the scale of the shortfall or variation between hospitals.

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Source: BBC News, 19 February 2025

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Cancer patients missed out on tests during lockdown, NHS England figures show

Huge numbers of people with suspected cancer were not referred to hospital for urgent checks or did not have a test during the first month of the lockdown, prompting fears that late diagnosis of the disease will reduce some patients’ chances of survival.

Unprecedented numbers of cancer patients missed out on vital treatments, diagnostic tests and outpatient appointments as the pandemic unfolded, NHS England data shows.

Macmillan Cancer Support estimates that 210,000 people should have entered the system this month. That means roughly 130,000 people who would ordinarily be referred to a consultant have not been. About 7% of these patients would usually require cancer treatment, meaning approximately 9,000 people might not have had their cancer diagnosed in April. 

The organisation said that around 2,500 people who should have been referred for their first treatment after a cancer diagnosis will not have received that treatment.

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Source: The Guardian, 11 June 2020

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Cancer patients missed chance for treatment due to 100-day waits, trust admits

Lung cancer patients at a major trust were on waiting lists for so long that their disease progressed to a stage where it was no longer treatable.

Following a harm review, Newcastle Hospitals Foundation Trust discovered two dozen patients whose cancer had progressed to a stage where it was more serious and difficult to treat.

Within this group of 24 patients, six were moved straight to end of life care when doctors finally decided on their treatment plan.

Between 1 January 2024 and 31 January 2025, a total of 160 lung cancer patients at Newcastle FT waited longer than 104 days for treatment after an urgent or suspected cancer referral. The national target is for 85% of cancer patients to receive their first treatment within 62 days, although it has not been met since 2015. 

“Stage migration” was the biggest concern in those cases, meaning the patient’s cancer progressed while they waited for treatment, making it harder to treat.

In papers submitted to a board meeting on Friday, the trust accepted its performance on cancer was still “clearly below” the standard required. The data on lung cancer in particular “underscored” the need for a “specific and continued” focus on treatment for the disease, the trust said.

Naser Turabi, Cancer Research UK’s director of evidence and implementation, said the trust’s disclosure has drawn attention to the issue of the impact of missing waiting times standards on patients.

“Delays to treatment negatively impact patients, but it’s hard to know just how badly,” he told HSJ.

“One study suggests that for many cancers, a four-week delay to surgery increases the risk of dying by 6-8 per cent, but we know that long waits can reduce the treatment options that are available, and have significant psychological impacts too.”

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Source: HSJ, 31 March 2025

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Cancer patients in England and Wales facing ‘unacceptable’ wait for support

The physical and mental health of tens of thousands of cancer patients in England and Wales is deteriorating because they are having to wait months for financial support from the government, a charity has warned.

Macmillan Cancer Support said many are waiting as long as five months to receive their personal independence payment (PIP), which is paid to people with long-term physical and mental health conditions or disability, and who have difficulty doing certain everyday tasks or getting around.

Health leaders said the “unacceptable” situation had now become critical, with thousands of cancer patients increasingly desperate for help.

Research for the charity found that among people with cancer who receive PIP, more than one in four (29%) have reported a deterioration in physical or mental health while they wait to receive it. This rises to almost half (46%) among those who wait more than 11 weeks to receive their first payment.

Macmillan is launching a “Pay PIP Now” campaign, saying it is hearing from patients going into debt, skipping meals and cancelling medical appointments due to travel costs, all because of delays to PIP. It wants ministers to cut the average wait times for PIP from 18 weeks at the moment to 12.

Research suggests most people with cancer suffer a financial impact from their diagnosis, including from being unable to work while having treatment, increased heating bills to stay warm and the cost of attending appointments.

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Source: The Guardian, 6 October 2022

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Cancer patients face ‘perfect storm’ as Covid piles pressure on NHS

Progress in clearing the NHS cancer treatment backlog in England has gone into reverse amid high Covid cases and staff shortages, analysis suggests.

The NHS has been striving to catch up with the pandemic backlog of cancer care but the analysis by Macmillan Cancer Support of official data suggests the drive has recently suffered a setback, with growing numbers of potential cancer diagnoses missed.

Four key cancer measures have fallen back, with two dropping to their worst ever recorded level.

Figures published by NHS England, and analysed by Macmillan for the Guardian, show the number of patients starting treatment in August following a decision to treat fell to 25,800. The figure was above 27,000 in June and July. The proportion of patients who began treatment within one month of the decision to treat fell to 93.7% – the lowest percentage ever recorded.

Data published last week also shows that in August there was a record-high number of patients forced to wait for more than two months after an urgent referral from their GP before they started cancer treatment.

Macmillan said it was concerned that rising Covid hospitalisations were making it “even harder for the system to cope”. Efforts to tackle the backlog are also being hit by a shortage of cancer nurses, the charity said.

Steven McIntosh, the executive director of advocacy at Macmillan, said: “We know that many patients are entering an overstretched system that was on its knees even before the pandemic. This risks a perfect storm, as the system experiences a considerable influx of patients alongside an overwhelmed workforce struggling to provide the care and support that people urgently need.”

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Source: The Guardian, 22 October 2021

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Cancer patients diagnosed in pandemic less likely to survive

Patients diagnosed with cancer in 2020 had “significantly lower” survival rates in Scotland a year after having their cases confirmed compared with the previous year, a report has found.

The increase in deaths was an indirect result of the pandemic as coronavirus dissuaded people from getting check-ups or visiting physicians.

Many cancer screening programmes were also paused and infection control measures in healthcare settings caused delays in both diagnosis and treatment.

Andrew Elder, president of the Royal College of Physicians, said the government’s decision to pause screening programmes was “understandable in the extreme circumstances”, but added that the figures were “concerning”. He said: “Fewer and later presentations by patients who may have had more advanced disease clearly have had sometimes tragic consequences that are now being identified in the data.”

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Source: The Times, 31 May 2023

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Cancer patients are dying after choosing fad social media ‘cures’

Cancer patients are dying due to misinformation on social media, turning down life-saving treatment in favour of “radical diets” and natural “cures”, oncologists have said.

Doctors gathered in Chicago for the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) general meeting said that some patients are delaying the start of their treatment until their cancer becomes metastatic, or incurable.

Some patients are choosing alternative treatments such as diets and essential oils instead of life-saving medicines, the doctors said, with patients falling victim to those who “deliberately push unproven treatments or ideas”.

The oncologists said that the field was “losing the battle for communication” in the age of misinformation.

England’s chief doctor added that the rates of misinformation around cancer seen by the NHS had become “alarmingly high” recently.

Richard Simcock, the chief medical officer at the charity Macmillan Cancer Support, said: “I have recently seen two young women who have declined all proven medical treatments for cancer and are instead pursuing unproven and radical diets promoted on social media.

“As a doctor, I want to be able to use the best available therapies to help people with cancer. A person is perfectly entitled to decline that therapy but when they do that on the basis of information which is frankly untrue or badly interpreted it makes me very sad. It’s clear that we have work to do to build back trust in evidence-based medicine.”

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Source: The Times, 2 June 2025

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