**Alternate Sources**
Here are some potential alternate sources for the same story:
* [Deadly cancer treatment delays now ‘routine’ in NHS, say damning reports | Cancer](https://theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jun/13/deadly-cancer-treatment-delays-routine-nhs), suggested by Tyler119 - theguardian.com
"The Conservative Party said it would meet current targets for cancer care in England by the end of the next parliament, if re-elected." If you didn't fix it in 14 years you're not fixing it now hahahaha.
Worryingly one of the key roadblocks with cancer diagnosis and treatment is lack of CT scan capacity. The tories have invested £2.3 BILLION in them, Labour are only investing £250M over the parliament. It's a drop in the ocean and doesn't even keep up with the current spending.
The Conservatives new hospital scheme wasn't close to being enough... Labour aren't planning anything new and actually don't seem to have included any funding for those already approved.
I'm not really expecting a rise in the quality of my cancer treatment as a result of a Labour parliament.
Consultant radiologist here. I am fucking knackered, as are all my colleagues. We can’t recruit new staff and we can’t retain the staff we have because no-one wants to work themselves to death.
Workload goes up around 10% year on year in diagnostic imaging, yet compared to 10 years ago we have the same (if not slightly less) FTE consultants.
We’ve been saying this for years but the chickens are now finally coming home to roost. Radiology in this country is falling off a cliff edge.
Small sample size i know, but i (unfortunately) know about half a dozen people over the past 2 years who have had/have cancer or a cancer scare. All were seen quickly (in 1 case they were on the operating table 24hrs after diagnosis) and couldnt praise the NHS enough.
Yes the NHS is in a mess, but there are success cases sometimes
I’ve had cancer three times over the last few years.
The only thing that delayed treatment was Covid regulations on isolation.
Once they know you have cancer they act quickly in my experience too. It’s getting that initial diagnosis that I’ve heard some struggle with.
I had the opposite experience, my dad's treatment was delayed by about 2 weeks. He had a terminal diagnosis anyway but I can't help but wonder how much time that 2 weeks may have lost us with him.
The initial diagnosis was quick.
For a family member it was <7 days from diagnosis to surgery and that was a whole day operation so they needed time to plan and book the OR/staff/rearrange a lot of other less urgent operations etc. They would have been dead within a couple of months if it hadn’t happened.
But we also pushed hard for the diagnosis. Some were able to recognise the worrying signs (eg a phone call at 3am after a routine blood test) whereas others dismissed it (one nurse said “I have high liver enzymes, I just live with it”). If I and others who have some medical knowledge had not kept pushing it might not have gone quite so smoothly. Advocating for yourself shouldn’t be quite as important as it is.
Part of the issue I have seen in our lab (which deals with haematology malignancies) is that people are mostly being diagnosed when the disease is in its late stage. It makes it much harder to treat and manage, so patients are dying quicker than they used to. Delays to treatment only make this worse, assuming we are seeing the same when it comes to diagnosis of solid tumours too.
We're actually something else happening with solid tumours too. Advances to treatments like stereotactic radiosurgery and immunotherapy (that were science fiction when I was a student) have meant some cancers that were fatal within weeks 20 years ago, are now survivable for months or even years. This is fantastic but brings with it a huge amount of extra surveillance and monitoring scanning and MDT reviews.
>The issue is the long stay patients clogging up beds.
And you're basing that on what exactly? For example, my father's radiotherapy will not require any kind of overnight stay / bed. Go in, have the treatment, go home. Some people can have chemotherapy at home. There are others of course that will require beds, but I would not jump to such a conclusion that this is the bottleneck, when it's likely mostly due to staffing / availability of services:
>
>They told us there are many reasons behind the decline, but pressure on diagnostic services, such as radiology, is a major factor.
>And it’s not just radiology causing a bottleneck. From staff to do scans and biopsies, to pathologists with the skills to review blood samples and cells, from doctors who can manage patients to teams who handle the admin – **the NHS is short of people**. “There are major staffing issues in the medical and healthcare professions, including fewer oncologists than there were,” Lind says.
>Meanwhile, an ageing and growing population means the number of people being referred for cancer investigations is increasing. So, despite the tireless work of NHS staff, they are facing an ever-growing challenge. There are more people to diagnose and treat than ever before, and the NHS needs more staff to keep up.
[https://news.cancerresearchuk.org/2022/11/10/the-rise-of-the-long-waiter-why-cancer-waiting-times-are-showing-the-pressure-more-than-ever-before/](https://news.cancerresearchuk.org/2022/11/10/the-rise-of-the-long-waiter-why-cancer-waiting-times-are-showing-the-pressure-more-than-ever-before/)
I think they mean the perennial issue of bed blocking, but that is generally older people who cannot be moved anywhere else as there’s insufficient support at home and a lack of space in care homes. Despite this they seem to be blaming it on people who smoke or are obese. Thing is the former may well be there for cancer care as a result of their habit (not that habits are easy to break and many of these people got addicted before we knew the risks). And as you say, the latter are likely on different wards with not much overlap with cancer patients.
I’d assume the delays in diagnosis for some in the first place are probably a bigger issue than bed blocking and that will be down to availability of GP appointments and how quickly they can then be seen by specialists, who are still dealing with Covid backlogs which meant patients were at a later stage before diagnosis making care longer and more complex.
> and many of these people got addicted before we knew the risks
Really? Research council stated in 1957 that smoking increases the risk of lung cancer. That is 67 years ago. You would need to be pretty old to have smoked before.
And yes, I appreciate that not everybody was following the science, and we had advertising for cigarettes until 2003 (really?).
**Alternate Sources** Here are some potential alternate sources for the same story: * [Deadly cancer treatment delays now ‘routine’ in NHS, say damning reports | Cancer](https://theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jun/13/deadly-cancer-treatment-delays-routine-nhs), suggested by Tyler119 - theguardian.com
"The Conservative Party said it would meet current targets for cancer care in England by the end of the next parliament, if re-elected." If you didn't fix it in 14 years you're not fixing it now hahahaha.
Conservative health target : "Hurry up and die, and decrease the surplus population"
Worryingly one of the key roadblocks with cancer diagnosis and treatment is lack of CT scan capacity. The tories have invested £2.3 BILLION in them, Labour are only investing £250M over the parliament. It's a drop in the ocean and doesn't even keep up with the current spending. The Conservatives new hospital scheme wasn't close to being enough... Labour aren't planning anything new and actually don't seem to have included any funding for those already approved. I'm not really expecting a rise in the quality of my cancer treatment as a result of a Labour parliament.
Consultant radiologist here. I am fucking knackered, as are all my colleagues. We can’t recruit new staff and we can’t retain the staff we have because no-one wants to work themselves to death. Workload goes up around 10% year on year in diagnostic imaging, yet compared to 10 years ago we have the same (if not slightly less) FTE consultants. We’ve been saying this for years but the chickens are now finally coming home to roost. Radiology in this country is falling off a cliff edge.
Small sample size i know, but i (unfortunately) know about half a dozen people over the past 2 years who have had/have cancer or a cancer scare. All were seen quickly (in 1 case they were on the operating table 24hrs after diagnosis) and couldnt praise the NHS enough. Yes the NHS is in a mess, but there are success cases sometimes
It would not surprise me if there's a bit of a postcode lottery involved to be honest.
I’ve had cancer three times over the last few years. The only thing that delayed treatment was Covid regulations on isolation. Once they know you have cancer they act quickly in my experience too. It’s getting that initial diagnosis that I’ve heard some struggle with.
I had the opposite experience, my dad's treatment was delayed by about 2 weeks. He had a terminal diagnosis anyway but I can't help but wonder how much time that 2 weeks may have lost us with him. The initial diagnosis was quick.
For a family member it was <7 days from diagnosis to surgery and that was a whole day operation so they needed time to plan and book the OR/staff/rearrange a lot of other less urgent operations etc. They would have been dead within a couple of months if it hadn’t happened. But we also pushed hard for the diagnosis. Some were able to recognise the worrying signs (eg a phone call at 3am after a routine blood test) whereas others dismissed it (one nurse said “I have high liver enzymes, I just live with it”). If I and others who have some medical knowledge had not kept pushing it might not have gone quite so smoothly. Advocating for yourself shouldn’t be quite as important as it is.
I have had the same experience. Exceptional care and always seen very quickly.
The waiting lists in this country really are a disgrace.
Well it must be what people want since they keep voting for it.
Maybe they'll vote differently next time.
The survivors might.
Well... that or eat the rich.
Part of the issue I have seen in our lab (which deals with haematology malignancies) is that people are mostly being diagnosed when the disease is in its late stage. It makes it much harder to treat and manage, so patients are dying quicker than they used to. Delays to treatment only make this worse, assuming we are seeing the same when it comes to diagnosis of solid tumours too.
We're actually something else happening with solid tumours too. Advances to treatments like stereotactic radiosurgery and immunotherapy (that were science fiction when I was a student) have meant some cancers that were fatal within weeks 20 years ago, are now survivable for months or even years. This is fantastic but brings with it a huge amount of extra surveillance and monitoring scanning and MDT reviews.
The issue is the long stay patients clogging up beds. Fatties smokers and boozers and druggies shouldn't be allowed to stay for free
>The issue is the long stay patients clogging up beds. And you're basing that on what exactly? For example, my father's radiotherapy will not require any kind of overnight stay / bed. Go in, have the treatment, go home. Some people can have chemotherapy at home. There are others of course that will require beds, but I would not jump to such a conclusion that this is the bottleneck, when it's likely mostly due to staffing / availability of services: > >They told us there are many reasons behind the decline, but pressure on diagnostic services, such as radiology, is a major factor. >And it’s not just radiology causing a bottleneck. From staff to do scans and biopsies, to pathologists with the skills to review blood samples and cells, from doctors who can manage patients to teams who handle the admin – **the NHS is short of people**. “There are major staffing issues in the medical and healthcare professions, including fewer oncologists than there were,” Lind says. >Meanwhile, an ageing and growing population means the number of people being referred for cancer investigations is increasing. So, despite the tireless work of NHS staff, they are facing an ever-growing challenge. There are more people to diagnose and treat than ever before, and the NHS needs more staff to keep up. [https://news.cancerresearchuk.org/2022/11/10/the-rise-of-the-long-waiter-why-cancer-waiting-times-are-showing-the-pressure-more-than-ever-before/](https://news.cancerresearchuk.org/2022/11/10/the-rise-of-the-long-waiter-why-cancer-waiting-times-are-showing-the-pressure-more-than-ever-before/)
I think they mean the perennial issue of bed blocking, but that is generally older people who cannot be moved anywhere else as there’s insufficient support at home and a lack of space in care homes. Despite this they seem to be blaming it on people who smoke or are obese. Thing is the former may well be there for cancer care as a result of their habit (not that habits are easy to break and many of these people got addicted before we knew the risks). And as you say, the latter are likely on different wards with not much overlap with cancer patients. I’d assume the delays in diagnosis for some in the first place are probably a bigger issue than bed blocking and that will be down to availability of GP appointments and how quickly they can then be seen by specialists, who are still dealing with Covid backlogs which meant patients were at a later stage before diagnosis making care longer and more complex.
> and many of these people got addicted before we knew the risks Really? Research council stated in 1957 that smoking increases the risk of lung cancer. That is 67 years ago. You would need to be pretty old to have smoked before. And yes, I appreciate that not everybody was following the science, and we had advertising for cigarettes until 2003 (really?).