Recent reported figures have shown that University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust (UHL) failed to meet their cancer targets every month of 2022.
NHS targets for cancer care state that 96% of cancer patients should receive their first round of treatment within 31 days of a decision to treat. However, Leicester hospitals didn’t manage to meet that target once between January and November of last year.
The worst month of 2022 was October, when just under a quarter of patients were left waiting longer than the 31-day limit.
On average, the Trust managed to treat 82.2% of cancer patients within the target.
Chief Operating Officer at UHL, Jon Melbourne, apologised to those patients left waiting for treatment. He said that the waits were due to the increased number of patients requiring treatment after the pandemic, which the Trust has not had enough capacity to deal with. He said:
“Our focus has been on building capacity so that we can see patients sooner. We recognise that any delay between the concern, a diagnosis, or treatment is an anxious time for patients and their families and we are doing all we can to reduce wait times and remove delays.”
He added that:
“Cancer wait times across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland are improving due to increased use of robotic surgery, which reduces recovery time for patients and enables a greater volume of surgeries to take place. We have also invested significantly in specialist staffing and radiography machines that help people access treatment sooner. We are committed to continued improvement of waiting times and are receiving support from the East Midlands Cancer Alliance to achieve this.”
However, the charity Cancer Research UK told LeicestershireLive that the UK-wide issues around cancer treatment cannot be wholly blamed on the pandemic.
Their Chief Executive, Michelle Mitchell, said:
“Recent waiting times statistics paint an extremely troubling picture for people affected by cancer. The last time all targets for cancer waiting times were met was as far back as 2015, and the number of people waiting for diagnosis and treatment remains unacceptably high.”
She added:
“It can be easy to get lost in statistics – but each one of those numbers represents someone’s child, parent, partner, sibling or friend. Although waiting times were certainly made worse by Covid, these challenges existed well before….The Prime Minister’s recent pledge to tackle waiting times is welcome – but we need to see new investment in diagnostic capacity as well as the publication of the Government’s promised 10-year cancer plan. Without this, we won’t see the improvements in cancer survival that people deserve, today, tomorrow and in the future.”
Comment
The consequences of a late diagnosis of cancer, or delayed start to treatment are potentially devastating and life-changing and these statistics make for concerning reading.
We are all aware that the aftermath of the pandemic continues to loom large and that there is a lot of pressure to catch up with backlogs across the board. However, as the charity Cancer Research UK rightly points out, there were issues with treatment targets and ensuring all patients received the care they needed before Covid-19 was a thing.
It is certainly pleasing to see that Leicester hospitals are focusing on the issue and working hard to make improvements, but it is clear that there is a long way to go.
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Danielle Young is a Legal Director in our Medical Negligence team, which has been ranked in tier one by the independently researched publication, The Legal 500.
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