Jump to content

Search the hub

Showing results for tags 'Cancer'.

More search options

  • Search By Tags

    Start to type the tag you want to use, then select from the list.

  • Search By Author

Content Type


Forums

  • All
    • Commissioning, service provision and innovation in health and care
    • Coronavirus (COVID-19)
    • Culture
    • Improving patient safety
    • Investigations, risk management and legal issues
    • Leadership for patient safety
    • Organisations linked to patient safety (UK and beyond)
    • Patient engagement
    • Patient safety in health and care
    • Patient Safety Learning
    • Professionalising patient safety
    • Research, data and insight
    • Miscellaneous

Categories

  • Commissioning, service provision and innovation in health and care
    • Commissioning and funding patient safety
    • Digital health and care service provision
    • Health records and plans
    • Innovation programmes in health and care
    • Climate change/sustainability
  • Coronavirus (COVID-19)
    • Blogs
    • Data, research and statistics
    • Frontline insights during the pandemic
    • Good practice and useful resources
    • Guidance
    • Mental health
    • Exit strategies
    • Patient recovery
    • Questions around Government governance
  • Culture
    • Bullying and fear
    • Good practice
    • Occupational health and safety
    • Safety culture programmes
    • Second victim
    • Speak Up Guardians
    • Staff safety
    • Whistle blowing
  • Improving patient safety
    • Clinical governance and audits
    • Design for safety
    • Disasters averted/near misses
    • Equipment and facilities
    • Error traps
    • Health inequalities
    • Human factors (improving human performance in care delivery)
    • Improving systems of care
    • Implementation of improvements
    • International development and humanitarian
    • Safety stories
    • Stories from the front line
    • Workforce and resources
  • Investigations, risk management and legal issues
    • Investigations and complaints
    • Risk management and legal issues
  • Leadership for patient safety
    • Business case for patient safety
    • Boards
    • Clinical leadership
    • Exec teams
    • Inquiries
    • International reports
    • National/Governmental
    • Patient Safety Commissioner
    • Quality and safety reports
    • Techniques
    • Other
  • Organisations linked to patient safety (UK and beyond)
    • Government and ALB direction and guidance
    • International patient safety
    • Regulators and their regulations
  • Patient engagement
    • Consent and privacy
    • Harmed care patient pathways/post-incident pathways
    • How to engage for patient safety
    • Keeping patients safe
    • Patient-centred care
    • Patient Safety Partners
    • Patient stories
  • Patient safety in health and care
    • Care settings
    • Conditions
    • Diagnosis
    • High risk areas
    • Learning disabilities
    • Medication
    • Mental health
    • Men's health
    • Patient management
    • Social care
    • Transitions of care
    • Women's health
  • Patient Safety Learning
    • Patient Safety Learning campaigns
    • Patient Safety Learning documents
    • Patient Safety Standards
    • 2-minute Tuesdays
    • Patient Safety Learning Annual Conference 2019
    • Patient Safety Learning Annual Conference 2018
    • Patient Safety Learning Awards 2019
    • Patient Safety Learning Interviews
    • Patient Safety Learning webinars
  • Professionalising patient safety
    • Accreditation for patient safety
    • Competency framework
    • Medical students
    • Patient safety standards
    • Training & education
  • Research, data and insight
    • Data and insight
    • Research
  • Miscellaneous

News

  • News

Find results in...

Find results that contain...


Date Created

  • Start
    End

Last updated

  • Start
    End

Filter by number of...

Joined

  • Start

    End

Group

First name

Last name

Country

Join a private group (if appropriate)

About me

Organisation

Role

Found 543 results
  1. Content Article
    Maria Koijck's goal for this film was to create a movement within the pharmaceutical industry considering the waste it produces. In this film you see Maria lay in the middle of an incredible amount of waste from just one surgery, her surgery. In August 2019 Maria was diagnosed with breast cancer. Surgeons had to remove her entire left breast. After a successful recovery, she went to to have a deep lap surgery where they gave her an entire new breast of her own bodily materials. During this process she discovered that 60% of the surgery materials used for this operation is disposable. For example: the stainless steal scissors that are flown in from Japan, are used for one cut before they end up in the bin. Maria asked the doctors to collect all of the surgery materials used for her operation, to get a clear idea of how much it really was. She was shocked to see six bags full of plastic waste.
  2. Content Article
    In the US, patients receiving cancer treatment via Medicare or Medicaid—two federal health insurance programmes—can face barriers to accessing treatment when insurers use the Prior Authorization Process to deny access. In this letter to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the Community Oncology Alliance (COA) outlines its concerns that prior authorizations are acting as "roadblocks to Americans with cancer getting the optimal treatment on a timely basis." Referring to proposed rule changes that aim to reduce the burden that prior authorization processes place on providers, the COA calls for the inclusion of medications to ensure that American's with cancer are not denied the treatment they need.
  3. Content Article
    Co-produced by young people and researchers from the University of Bristol and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, ‘EDUCATE’ will help teach students about the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine and provide reassurance about receiving the vaccine, which is usually offered to teenagers at school as part of the national vaccination programme.
  4. Content Article
    In this report, the Public Accounts Committee, which examines the value for money of UK Government projects, programmes and service delivery, looks in detail at the implementation of NHS England’s three-year recovery programme for tackling the Covid-19 backlog of elective care.
  5. Content Article
    This ethnographic qualitative study in the BMJ aimed to describe how patients are engaged with cancer decisions in the context of multidisciplinary teams (MDT) and how MDT recommendations are carried out in the context of a shared decision. The study was carried out at four head and neck cancer centres in the north of England. The authors found that the current model of MDT decision-making does not support shared decision-making, and may actively undermine it. They recommend the development of a model that allows the individual patient more input into MDT discussions, and where decisions are made on potential treatment options rather than providing a single recommendation for discussion with the patient. Deeper consideration should be given to how the MDT incorporates the patient perspective and/or delivers its discussion of options to the patient.
  6. News Article
    The number of people waiting more than two months to start cancer treatment remained over 30,000 — double the pre-covid level — for three months to the end of October, according to new data published. NHS England previously committed to bringing the number of people waiting longer than 62 days to be diagnosed and begin treatment, after referral for suspected cancer, to pre-pandemic levels – roughly 14,000 – by March 2023. But the number has been generally growing since the spring, and remained above 30,000 from August through to the end of October, the latest figures available. September and October’s monthly totals were higher than the previous monthly peak in May 2020, after services were disrupted in the first covid wave. The increase in waiters this year has been caused by diagnostic and treatment capacity falling short of an increased number of referrals. Matt Sample, policy development manager at Cancer Research UK, said: “While it’s good to see significant numbers of people coming forward with potential cancer symptoms, performance against key targets are among the worst on record, continuing a trend that existed long before the pandemic hit, with one target having been missed for almost seven years.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 8 December 2022
  7. News Article
    NHS England is raiding a national fund earmarked for improvements in cancer, maternity care and other priority services by up to £1bn this year, to pay for deficits elsewhere, and will cut it by a similar amount in 2023-24, HSJ has learned. The “service development fund” is allocated at the beginning of the year for priority service areas also including primary care, community health, mental health, learning disabilities and health inequalities. Several NHSE directors said it was being tightly squeezed this year, amid major cost pressures from inflation, a pay deal unfunded by government, and higher than expected covid-related costs. One well-placed source said the fund this year was required to underspend by about £1bn against what had been planned, which will help balance overspends elsewhere in the NHS. The cuts are likely to be linked to ministers’ view that the NHS should focus on “core” priorities and cut other activities, including reducing NHSE national programme work which is typically linked to SDF budgets. Patricia Hewitt is looking into giving integrated care systems more “autonomy” from NHSE to set their own priorities. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 8 December 2022
  8. News Article
    Poorer women in Britain have some of the highest death rates from cancer in Europe, an in-depth new World Health Organization study has found. They are much more likely to die from the disease compared with better-off women in the UK and women in poverty in many other European countries. Women in the UK from deprived backgrounds are particularly at risk of dying from cancer of the lungs, liver, bladder and oesophagus (foodpipe), according to the research by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the WHO’s specialist cancer body. IARC experts led by Dr Salvatore Vaccarella analysed data from 17 European countries, looking for socioeconomic inequalities in mortality rates for 17 different types of cancer between 1990 and 2015. Out of the 17 countries studied, Britain had the sixth-worst record for the number of poor women dying of cancer. It had the worst record for oesophageal cancer, fourth worst for lung and liver cancer and seventh worst for breast and kidney cancer. However, the UK has a better record on poor men dying of cancer compared with their counterparts in many of the other 16 countries. It ranked fifth overall, second for cancer of the larynx and pharynx, and third for lung, stomach and colon cancer. That stark gender divide is most likely because women in the UK began smoking in large numbers some years after men did so, the researchers believe. They pointed to the fact that while cases of lung cancer have fallen among men overall in Britain, they have remained stable or increased among women, and gone up among women from deprived backgrounds. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 28 November 2022
  9. News Article
    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
  10. News Article
    All GP practices in England will be able to book cancer tests directly for their patients from later this month, NHS bosses say. The option of GPs booking CT scans, ultrasounds and MRIs has been gradually rolled out in recent years, as community testing centres have opened. NHS England chief executive Amanda Pritchard will announce later all GPs will now be able to do this. GPs have previously relied on referring on to specialist hospital doctors. Before referring, they have to identify clear symptoms the patient may have a specific type of cancer. But only one out of every five cancer cases is diagnosed through these urgent GP referrals. Patients with less clear symptoms face long waits for check-ups or are diagnosed only after presenting at an accident-and-emergency (A&E) unit or being referred to hospital for something else. And Ms Pritchard will tell delegates at the NHS Providers annual conference of health managers, in Liverpool, today, she hopes the new initiative will lead to tens of thousands of cancer cases every year being detected sooner. Read full story Source: BBC News, 16 November 2022
  11. News Article
    Experts have warned that Europe faces a “cancer epidemic” unless urgent action is taken to boost treatment and research, after an estimated 1m diagnoses were missed during the pandemic. The impact of Covid-19 and the focus on it has exposed “weaknesses” in cancer health systems and in the cancer research landscape across the continent, which, if not addressed as a matter of urgency, will set back cancer outcomes by almost a decade, leading healthcare and scientific experts say. A report, European Groundshot – Addressing Europe’s Cancer Research Challenges: a Lancet Oncology Commission, brought together a wide range of patient, scientific, and healthcare experts with detailed knowledge of cancer across Europe. One unintended consequence of the pandemic was the adverse effects that the rapid repurposing of health services and national lockdowns, and their continuing legacy, have had on cancer services, on cancer research, and on patients with cancer, the experts said. “To emphasise the scale of this problem, we estimate that about 1m cancer diagnoses might have been missed across Europe during the Covid-19 pandemic,” they wrote in The Lancet Oncology. “There is emerging evidence that a higher proportion of patients are diagnosed with later cancer stages compared with pre-pandemic rates as a result of substantial delays in cancer diagnosis and treatment. This cancer stage shift will continue to stress European cancer systems for years to come. “These issues will ultimately compromise survival and contribute to inferior quality of life for many European patients with cancer.” Read full story Source: The Guardian, 15 November 2022
  12. News Article
    There has been a sharp rise in long waits for cancer therapy in the past four years, BBC analysis shows. The number waiting more than the 62-day target time for therapy in the past year has topped 67,000 across England, Northern Ireland and Scotland - twice as many as the same period in 2017-18. Waits are also getting worse in Wales, but data does not go that far back. The national cancer director for the NHS in England said staff were striving to catch up on the backlog of care, but experts warned the problems could be putting patients at risk. Steven McIntosh, of Macmillan Cancer Support, told the BBC that the delays were "traumatic" and people were living "day-by-day with fear and anxiety". He said the situation was "unacceptable" and could even be having an impact on the chances of survival. Describing the NHS as "chronically short-staffed", he said: "The NHS doesn't have the staff it needs to diagnose cancer, to deliver surgery and treatment, to provide care, support and rehabilitation." Read full story Source: BBC News, 9 November 2022
  13. News Article
    Cases of mouth cancer in the UK have increased by more than one-third in the last decade to hit a record high, according to a new report. The number of cases has more than doubled within the last generation and previous common causes like smoking and drinking are being added to by other lifestyle factors. According to the Oral Health Foundation, 8,864 people in the UK were diagnosed with the disease last year – up 36% on a decade ago, with 3,034 people losing their life to it within the year. This is an increase in deaths of 40% in the last 10 years, and a 20% rise in the last five. Dr Nigel Carter, the chief executive of the Oral Health Foundation, said: “While most cancers are on the decrease, cases of mouth cancer continue to rise at an alarming rate". Survival rates for mouth cancer have barely improved in the last 20 years, partly because so many cases are diagnosed too late. Just over half of all mouth cancers are diagnosed at stage four – where the cancer is at its most advanced. The findings from the Oral Health Foundation have been released to coincide with November’s Mouth Cancer Action Month. The goal of the Oral Health Foundation is to improve people’s lives by reducing the harm caused by oral diseases – many of which are entirely preventable. Read full story Source: The Independent, 9 November 2022
  14. News Article
    Plans for up to 150 new community diagnostic hubs to tackle the NHS’ ballooning diagnostic waiting lists are included in NHS England ‘blue print plans’ leaked to HSJ. The document pointed out the hubs “were highlighted in the phase 3 letter [from Sir Simon Stevens] and will be recommended as part of new service models for diagnostics in the forthcoming [Sir Mike] Richards’ Review of Diagnostics Capacity”. It said “at least 150 community diagnostic hubs should be established in the first instance (broadly equivalent to the number of acute hospitals)” although it appears many of these may be temporary facilities. The phase 3 letter said systems should mange the “immediate growth in people requiring cancer diagnosis and/or treatment returning to the service by… the development of community diagnostic hubs” among other measures The Richards review was commissioned by NHS England in 2019 as it had long been recognised that England has one of the lowest levels in Europe of diagnostic equipment as well as a shortage in facilities and staff. Last month think-tanks warned of significant worsening of cancer outcomes because of the backlog in diagnosis and treatment created by a fall in referrals during the pandemic..." Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 4 September 2020
  15. News Article
    Scores of MPs and former ministers have urged the prime minister to tackle a backlog in NHS cancer care that threatens to lead to thousands of early deaths over the next decade. More than 100 MPs have written to Boris Johnson after the coronavirus lockdown caused severe disruption to cancer diagnoses and treatments. They have called on him to deliver an emergency boost to treatment capacity. One senior oncologist has claimed that in a worst-case scenario the effects of the pandemic could result in 30,000 excess cancer deaths over the next decade. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Times, 22 August 2020
  16. News Article
    Thousands of patients with cancer have had chemotherapy delivered to their doors so that they can more safely receive treatment during the coronavirus pandemic. Up to 10,000 chemo home deliveries were made over three months at the peak of the outbreak, avoiding the need for patients to venture out and risk infection when their immune system was low. The drops are part of the COVID-friendly treatments introduced in response to the pandemic which have helped to ensure that 85,000 people could start treatment between March and June, with latest data showing referrals beginning to recover to pre-pandemic levels. NHS staff, including community nurses and pharmacists, and volunteers have been dropping off the life-saving medication – they step back two metres when they arrive at a patient’s house, identify them and make sure they have everything they need. Hospitals have also significantly increased the use of chemo at home, with local pharmacy teams and community nurses providing the service to reduce cancer patients’ risk of exposure to the virus. The action joins a series of measures, including the rollout of COVID protected cancer hubs for treatment and introducing ‘COVIDfriendly’ cancer drugs. NHS England is spending £160 million on drugs that mean patients do not have to go to hospitals for regular checks and treatment. Dame Cally Palmer, director of cancer for the NHS in England said: “NHS staff have treated more than 108,000 patients requiring specialist hospital care for COVID-19 while also keeping other vital services such as cancer, maternity and A&E running throughout the pandemic. “The NHS has also fast tracked modern, more convenient services that help to keep patients and staff safe – from video consultations to chemotherapy delivered to patients’ doors – that have allowed 85,000 people to start cancer treatment during the pandemic.” Read full story Source: NHS Improvement, 17 August 2020
  17. News Article
    Screening women for breast cancer from their 40s rather than their 50s could save lives without adding to the diagnosis of harmless cancers, a UK study has found. The research was based on 160,000 women from England, Scotland and Wales, followed up for around 23 years. Lowering the screening age could save one life per 1,000 women checked, the scientists say. But experts caution there are many other considerations, including cost. Cancer Research UK says it is still "not clear if reducing the breast screening age would give any additional benefit compared to the UK's existing screening programme". The charity says the priority should be getting cancer services "back on track" for women aged 50-70, after disruption caused by the pandemic. Read full story Source: BBC News, 13 August 2020
  18. News Article
    As part of a £160m initiative, the NHS will look to roll out and expand ‘Covid-friendly’ cancer treatments which are safer for patients during the pandemic, the health service’s Chief Executive Sir Simon Stevens has announced. The funding will help pay for drugs which treat patients without having as significant of an impact on their immune system, or which could offer other benefits such as a reduced number of hospital visits. Almost 50 treatments have been approved for use as ‘swaps’ for existing drugs, with thousands of patients having already benefitted, and more are expected to be made available this week as part of deals struck between the NHS and pharmaceutical companies. Within these treatments include options which allow patients to take tablets at home or receive medicines with fewer side effects rather than undergoing hospital-based treatment which can leave them more susceptible to coronavirus and other infections. Sir Stevens said: “Since the first case of Covid in England six months ago, NHS staff have fast tracked new, innovative ways of working so that other services, including A&E, cancer and maternity could continue safely for patients and it is thanks to these incredible efforts that 65,000 people could start treatment for cancer during the pandemic. “We are now adopting new, kinder treatment options which are not only effective but safer for use during the Covid-19 pandemic and more convenient for thousands of patients, who can take medication at home or be given medicines with less harmful effects on their immune system.” Read full story Source: National Health Executive, 3 August 2020
  19. News Article
    A sponge-on-a-string pill test could transform the way oesophageal cancer is diagnosed, researchers say. The method can identify 10 times more people with Barrett’s oesophagus than the usual GP route, scientists say. The test, which can be carried out by a nurse in the GP surgery, is also better at picking up abnormal cells and potentially early-stage cancer. Barrett’s oesophagus is a condition that can lead to oesophageal cancer, cancer of the food pipe, in a small number of people. Normally it is diagnosed in hospital by endoscopy, which involves passing a camera down into the stomach, following a GP referral for long-standing heartburn symptoms. The cytosponge test, developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge, is a small pill with a thread attached that the patient swallows. It expands into a small sponge when it reaches the stomach, and is then quickly pulled back up the throat by a nurse, collecting cells from the oesophagus for analysis. The pill is a quick, simple and well tolerated test that can be performed in a GP surgery and helps tell doctors who needs an endoscopy. In turn, this could prevent many people from having potentially unnecessary endoscopies. Scientists say that as well as better detection, the test means cancer patients can benefit from kinder treatment options if their cancer is caught early enough. Read full story Source: The Independent, 1 August 2020
  20. News Article
    About 3,500 people in England may die within the next five years of one of the four main cancers – breast, lung, oesophageal or bowel – as a result of delays in being diagnosed because of COVID-19, say the researchers in the Lancet Oncology journal. “Our findings demonstrate the impact of the national Covid-19 response, which may cut short the lives of thousands of people with cancer in England over the next five years,” said Dr Ajay Aggarwal from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, who led the research. Routine cancer screening was suspended during the lockdown, the authors said. So was the routine referral to hospital outpatient departments of people with symptoms that could be something else but also might possibly be cancer. Only those deemed to need emergency care by the GP or those who go to A&E are being picked up. Inevitably, those are people with more advanced cancers. If cancer is picked up at an earlier stage, successful treatment and survival are much more likely. “Whilst currently attention is being focused on diagnostic pathways where cancer is suspected, the issue is that a significant number of cancers are diagnosed in patients awaiting investigation for symptoms not considered related to be cancer. Therefore we need a whole system approach to avoid the predicted excess deaths,” said Aggarwal. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 20 July 2020
  21. News Article
    A former senior NHS official plans to sue the organisation after he had to pay a private hospital £20,000 for potentially life-saving cancer surgery because NHS care was suspended due to COVID-19. Rob McMahon, 68, decided to seek private treatment after Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS trust told him that he would have to wait much longer than usual for a biopsy. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer after an MRI scan on 19 March, four days before the lockdown began. McMahon was due to see a consultant urologist on 27 March but that was changed to a telephone consultation and then did not take place for almost two weeks. “At that appointment, the consultant said: ‘Don’t worry, these things are slow-growing. You’ll have a biopsy but not for two or three months.’ I thought, ‘that’s a long time’, so decided to see another consultant privately for a second opinion.” A PET-CT scan confirmed that he had a large tumour on both lobes of the prostate and a biopsy showed the cancer was at risk of breaking out of the prostate capsule and spreading into his body. He then paid to undergo a radical prostatectomy at a private Spire hospital. “This is care that I should have had on the NHS, not something that I should have had to pay for myself. I had an aggressive cancer. I needed urgent treatment – there was no time to waste,”, he said. “With the pandemic, he added, “it was almost like a veil came down over the NHS. He worked for the NHS for 17 years as a manager in hospitals in London, Birmingham and Redditch, Worcestershire, and was the chief executive of an NHS primary care trust in Leicester.” Mary Smith of Novum Law, McMahon’s solicitors, said: “Unfortunately, Rob’s story is one of many we are hearing about from cancer patients who have been seriously affected by the disruption to oncology services as a result of COVID-19." Read full story Source: The Guardian, 11 July 2020
  22. News Article
    Far fewer people are having surgery or cancer treatment because COVID-19 has disrupted NHS services so dramatically, and those who do are facing the longest waits on record. NHS figures reveal huge falls in the number of patients who have been going into hospital for a range of vital care in England since the pandemic began in March, prompting fears that their health will have worsened because diseases and conditions went untreated. Patients have been unable to access a wide range of normal care since non-COVID-19 services were suspended in hospitals in March so the NHS could focus on treating the disease. Many patients were also afraid to go into hospital in case they became infected, which contributed to a fall in treatment volumes. Tim Gardner, a senior policy fellow at the Health Foundation thinktank, said: “The dramatic falls in people visiting A&E, urgent referrals for suspected cancer and routine hospital procedures during lockdown are all growing evidence that more people are going without the care they need for serious health conditions." “Early diagnosis and prompt treatment of cancer is crucial to saving lives, and delays in referrals and treatment during the pandemic are likely to mean more people are diagnosed later when their illness is further advanced and harder to treat.” Read full story Source: Guardian, 9 July 2020
  23. News Article
    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. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Telegraph, 8 July 2020
  24. News Article
    Almost half a million people are waiting at least six weeks for tests which could diagnose cancer – up from just 30,000 before lockdown, new analysis shows. Ministers have been urged to urgently bring forward plans to tackle the backlog of patients waiting for care, with calls for weekly testing of staff to keep coronavirus infections off the wards. Cancer charities fear there will be an extra 18,000 deaths a year because those with symptoms are not receiving prompt diagnosis and treatment. Read full story (paywalled) Source: The Telegraph, 23 June 2020
  25. News Article
    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. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 11 June 2020
×
×
  • Create New...