'Real risk to patients' county cancer referrals at all time high

Anita Day, Worcestershire Acute NHS Hospitals Trust's vice chairman and non executive director, spoke after the record referrals were revealed at a trust meeting but cancer diagnosis were said to be not be rising at the same rate.

She said if the referrals were to continue to grow discussions would have to be held with doctors to find a solution.

She said: "It's not like the acuity (the severity of the condition) has got a lot higher - that's good news.

"But if the numbers are going to continue to grow at this level revisiting the pathways (with doctors) becomes imperative, because there is a real danger patients are going to come to harm."

Ms Day was unavailable to expand on her comments.

The board of the trust, which runs Worcestershire Royal Hospital, Kidderminster Hospital and the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch, discussed the issue at a meeting last week.

The latest figures, which cover March, were revealed in an Integrated Performance Report.

CANCER: Cancer referrals are an all time high in Worcestershire. Graph: Worcestershire Acute NHS Hospital Trust

The report said referrals that month were up 12 per cent from the previous month, to 2,910 in total.

The trust’s data showed five months in the last 13 have been above the previous highest number of referrals of 2,726 recorded in October 2019.

As of March 31, there were 3,032 patients on the trust's patient tracking list with 181 patients having been diagnosed, 1,801 still suspected of having cancer and the remaining 1,050 patients having been tracked for less than a fortnight.

HOSPITAL: Worcestershire Royal Hospital

Cancer patients should not wait more than 28 days from referral to finding out whether they have cancer. 

They should have a confirmed diagnosis and start treatment within 62 days.

The report said: “We are not yet achieving the 28-day faster diagnosis standard and this remains at risk whilst we continue to have delays at the start of patient cancer pathways.

“These delays also impact the 62-day pathway. However, we do continue to start over 90 per cent of first treatments within one month of the decision to treat.

“Our backlog of cancer patients waiting 63 plus days remains significant at 335 and of those, 144 have been waiting 104 plus days.”

During the meeting Colin Horwath, the trust's non-executive director, asked if it was a permanent change in the level of demand or part of a pandemic backlog with a reduction expected at some point.

Cancer referrals increase 'to continue for next six months'

Paul Brannan, chief operating officer of the trust, replied: “The expectation at the moment is the increase in referrals will continue throughout the year, particularly in skin, breast and colorectal – for example colorectal we were at 400 referrals a month, and they are now standing at 600 month.

“One of the issues we have on cancer referrals is the performers that exist, on the two week pathways, have become a big tick box – this symptom, this symptom, this symptom refer.

“I think we need to work far closer with our GP colleagues to ensure there’s perhaps more at clinical face-to-face evaluation prior to referral. We are going to have to have difficult clinical debates around cancer referral.

“Whilst we seeing growth in referrals we are not seeing the equivalent growth in cancers.”

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We reported last month Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust is in the top 10 worst NHS trusts in England for patients having to wait beyond the two week target between GP cancer referral and first consultant appointment, according to House of Commons Library data.