Worcestershire NHS managers knew cancers missed due to X-ray backlog

According to reports, senior managers at an NHS trust knew up to 30 cancers may have gone undetected two years before an official probe into a backlog of thousands of X-rays.

Although the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and Healthwatch made investigations in 2016, neither one were told of potential harm to patients. The backlog was publicly exposed by Ken Hall, who approached the Care Quality Commission in 2016, where it then identified 11,000 X-rays had not been processed, but was subsequently struck off after allegations of fraud. 

"These go through a rigorous quality assurance process and the Care Quality Commission would not publish any statement in an inspection report that it did not believe to be true." Said the CQC when asked about its findings of no harm after being shown the 2014 trust management committee reports, the CQC also told the BBC it could find no record of inspectors having had sight of them. 

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Source: BBC News, 27 August 2021