My treatment was delayed so long I got cancer – and there are tens of thousands like me

Delays in NHS care have led to almost 40,000 compensation claims since 2010, costing more than £8bn

Sharni Marks endured multiple rounds of chemotherapy, leaving her weak and sick. She has lost her hair and her nails and suffers painful mouth ulcers. Now doctors have told her that her cancer treatment has probably made her infertile and she might need a hysterectomy.

All this was avoidable.

Marks, 31, was diagnosed with cancer last March after waiting more than a year and a half for the double mastectomy meant to reduce her risk of getting the disease.

The NHS has now accepted in a letter to her GP that her cancer developed during her long time on the waiting list. She is not alone.

Since 2010, there have been almost 40,000 compensation claims for injury and deaths caused by delays in care, costing more than £8.3 billion — enough to build 15 hospitals the size of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham.

The data comes from NHS Resolution, which handles compensation claims against the health service, and includes routine surgery and emergency care. The 39,686 successful compensation claims over the past 15 years are attributed to one of eight categories of delay such as surgery or diagnosis. Delay in treatment was the single largest category, costing the NHS £3.9 billion for 19,199 cases. Delays in diagnosis was the next biggest group at 16,164 claims, worth a total of £3.4 billion.

The government has been repeatedly warned about patients coming to harm from long waits. Coroners in England and Wales sent at least 192 warnings about the issue by the end of 2024, up from 62 in 2013.

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Source: The Times, 19 January 2025