Tue 7 Jul 2020, 08:00 AM | Posted by editor
LETTER from Mark Langabeer, Newton Abbot Labour member
Panorama this week examined the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on cancer treatment. Deborah James, a cancer sufferer, interviewed other cancer patients and health care professionals about the consequences for many who have been receiving treatments since Lockdown. James reported that her radiotherapy had not been affected but she interviewed people whose life expectancy had been reduced because of delays in diagnosis and treatment. The message to “Stay at home, protect the NHS and save lives” has resulted in a rise in avoidable deaths.
James interviewed a friend who had her chemotherapy paused and the twelve-week delay meant a progression of the disease. She blamed Covid and her health care team for her worsening condition; she died aged only 31. Sara Hiom, Director of Information at Cancer Research UK, said that as with other diseases, early diagnoses saved lives. Eleven million people are screened annually for bowel, cervical and breast cancers and early detection increases the chances of survival by 90%. But screening has now stopped as a result of Covid.
“Go private”…only quarter of a million!
Most detections of cancer are made through urgent referrals from GPs but referrals fell from an average of 3,000 to 700 a week in April. One in ten detections are made in A&E departments. James interviewed someone who had been suffering severe groin pain but only got pain killers. The delay in having a CT scan meant that a tumour had reached such a size that it was no longer operable.
James interviewed a woman whose clinical treatment was stopped because there were no staff available. Her lead clinician advised her that the only other option was going private, at a cost of over £250,000. The National Clinical Director for Cancer, NHS England, said that diagnosis was often too slow, even in normal times, but Covid has made it worse. Due to additional precautions, the number of operations has fallen, but it was noted that the private healthcare sector had spare capacity that was not being utilized.
Chair of Action Radiography, a charity, said that she believed that the initial advice, to stop radiotherapy, was in some cases a mistake. Another expert interviewed calculated that with the worst-case scenario, excess deaths as a result of cancer could be around 35,000, so clearly one indirect consequence of coronavirus is the creation of further health crises. This is no small thanks to ten years of austerity and the fact that the NHS was ill-prepared for the pandemic in the first place.
