Government finagry over cancer targets
Allison Pearson in the Telegraph is normally dreadful, but her column today on the government's weasel plan to scrap cancer treatment targets is really good. It's behind their paywall, but this (longish) excerpt summarises it:"This is Health Week on the government’s media grid. With no good news to impart about our calamitous NHS with its 7.5 million (at least) waiting list, Mr Barclay was on the airwaves trying to put the best possible gloss on a decision to scrap two-thirds of cancer waiting-times targets in England. (A move so sublimely cynical it could have come straight out of Yes Minister.) Under the plan, nine targets will be consolidated into three pledges (that weasel word again). Potential cancer patients will no longer have to be routinely referred to a specialist within 28 days which health leaders somehow believe will mean “patients will get better treatment in the longer term”.Honestly, how stupid do they think we are? One in two people gets cancer and Cancer Research UK says this will increase 30 per cent by 2040. Early diagnosis and fast treatment are crucial. The international accepted goal which saves lives is the 62-day treatment target. That is missed in a staggering four out of 10 English patients. (Oncologists around the world regard British waiting times as a sick joke.) Just four weeks’ delay in starting treatment increases the death rate by 8-13 per cent. At least 100,000 people have seen their cancer worsen or been left with fewer treatment options because of appalling NHS delays over the past decade, according to Macmillan Cancer Support. And some 9,000 cancers were missed as a result of breast-screening interruptions during the pandemic.Sorry, I know that’s a lot of statistics to absorb. But those 9,000 women – someone’s wife, someone’s mum, someone’s beloved best friend – are dead or dying now. All the Amys and the Nickys and the Jills buried in the unmarked tomb of excess deaths.It’s mortifying in every sense. But instead of launching a radical new national cancer plan to catch up with superior countries that don’t just allow their citizens to sit on a waiting list until they’ve got Stage 4 (straight to palliative care for you, Sir!), health leaders scratch their heads and exclaim, 'I know, if we scrap the pesky targets we won’t be accused of failing to hit the targets any more. Simples!'Denial and deceit are their watchwords. The cancer waiting times for April, published on 8 June, were awful, but NHS England continues to insist that everything is tickety-boo. Nothing to see here. Failure in our cancer care has become so normalised that hardly anyone bothers to scream and shout about the obscene number of missed chances to save lives which make the UK such an outlier in the civilised world."https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2023/08/15/nhs-cancer-crisis-waiting-lists-steve-barclay-rishi-sunak/
Richard Carter ● 1180d26 Comments ● 1176d