Deadly cancer treatment delays have tripled over the past twelve years with more than a third of patients waiting over the two month target, new government figures show.
Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has revealed that 33.4 percent of cancer patients are waiting longer than the 62-day standard to access treatment – the maximum time patients should wait between a cancer referral and the start of treatment.
The number of patients in England who are not treated within this limit has risen by three times in comparison to the equivalent statistic of 11 percent in 2012.
The news comes alongside a separate analysis of NHS England wait times by Catch Up with Cancer campaign revealing that since January 2020 a quarter of a million patients have exceeded the 62 day wait target for from GP referral to treatment.
The new figures come despite an NHS plan to reduce the backlog of non-emergency surgery that built up throughout the COVID-19 pandemic announced in February 2022.
Measures included increasing healthcare capacity and prioritising diagnosis and treatment.
Although some of the increased waits can be linked to growing numbers of people with cancer due to an ageing population, experts say this is only part of the explanation.
They point out UK cancer survival rates lag behind many western and eastern European nations and they call for an overhaul of NHS services to ensure patients are diagnosed and treated more promptly.
Professor Pat Price, chair of Radiotherapy UK and co-founder of Catch Up With Cancer, said: “We’re dealing with a desperate legacy of cancer treatment delays and without urgent action it is only going to get worse. The Office for National Statistics figures are devastating and show why we are at the bottom of the league tables for cancer survival. Cancer treatment waiting times have been near record levels for too long. This should be firmly placed back at the top of the political agenda – decisive action would save thousands of peoples’ lives a year. The Government have said the NHS is broken. Any effort to fix it must prioritise cancer and include a dedicated cancer plan to ensure people get the cancer treatment they need on time.”
Leading cancer expert Professor Karol Sikora, former advisor to the World Health Organisation on cancer care said: “It’s awful. Patients are dying waiting for treatment. These figures have got worse. Successive ministers have blamed the covid backlog, but this is no longer the reason.
Patients are waiting weeks and months knowing they have cancer, knowing it is spreading and just waiting for treatment.”
Professor Sikora pointed to research showing the risk of dying from cancer increases by 10 percent with every month delay in treatment and he urged the government to improve patient access to GP’s and cancer diagnostics so that cancers are picked up earlier when they are more treatable and potentially curable.
He added: “We urgently need to give patients better access to diagnostics and scans so cancers can be picked up earlier and treatment can be started sooner.”
The analysis comes as figures show there are more private hospital admissions than in any previous quarter on record.
An unprecedented number of these paid for using private medical insurance rather than being funded directly by the patient – known as self-pay. The biggest increases came in the 20-29 and 30-39 year-old age groups which were both up by 13 percent.
Emily Jones, director at leading independent consultancy Broadstone which analysed the figures said: “Following a record 2023, private health admissions have continued to surge through the first three months of 2024 to further all-time highs as the NHS crisis pushes hundreds of thousands of patients private. It seems inevitable that we will soon be seeing over a million private health admissions every year.
“It is little surprise that this trend is being almost entirely driven by private medical insurance as employers recognise the threat of poor health which has manifested itself in soaring economic inactivity figures.”
The analysis comes as figures show there are more private hospital admissions than in any previous quarter on record.
An unprecedented number of these paid for using private medical insurance rather than being funded directly by the patient – known as self-pay. The biggest increases came in the 20-29 and 30-39 year-old age groups which were both up by 13 percent.
Emily Jones, director at leading independent consultancy Broadstone which analysed the figures said: “Following a record 2023, private health admissions have continued to surge through the first three months of 2024 to further all-time highs as the NHS crisis pushes hundreds of thousands of patients private. It seems inevitable that we will soon be seeing over a million private health admissions every year.
“It is little surprise that this trend is being almost entirely driven by private medical insurance as employers recognise the threat of poor health which has manifested itself in soaring economic inactivity figures.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We have inherited a broken NHS. Too many cancer patients are waiting too long for treatment, and we are determined to change that. As part of our mission to get the NHS back on its feet, we will improve cancer survival rates by hitting all cancer waiting time targets within five years, and double the number of MRI and CT scanners so no patient waits longer than they should.”
