Hospitals 'inappropriately' turned down urgent cancer referrals during lockdown, GPs say

Urgent cancer referrals were "inappropriately" rejected by hospitals during the coronavirus lockdown without tests being carried out, GPs have said. 

Cancer Research UK said the findings from a survey of more than 1,000 GPs were "alarming", warning that patients whose lives may be at risk were being left "in limbo".

Family doctors were surveyed in June and asked what had happened to patients they had referred to hospitals for tests in the month to that point because cancer was suspected. 

A quarter of GPs said urgent referrals had been inappropriately turned down by hospitals more often than had been the case before the pandemic.  

Four in 10 said that, when tests were refused, patients had been left without proper checks to see whether their case could safely be left without investigation.

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Source: The Telegraph, 8 July 2020