Health Secretary urges NHS to meet cancer targets

Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt has warned that the NHS must meet two key targets on cancer waiting times by the end of the year.

Under the NHS Cancer Plan, published in 2000, patients should have to wait no more than one month to begin treatment after being diagnosed with cancer, while patients urgently referred by their GPs should receive treatment within two months of being referred. The deadline for both targets was December 2005.

Speaking at the National Cancer Waits Project briefing in London, Ms Hewitt said there was a “clear and impressive story of real improvement” since the implementation of the plan, but added, “a great deal more needs to be done.”

The Health Secretary said that the targets were being achieved in the treatment of breast cancer. According to the latest figures, 96.2% of women who received a positive diagnosis following referral by their GP began treatment within 62 days, while 97.8% of women began receiving treatment within 31 days of diagnosis.

Ms Hewitt said: “The 31 and 62 day targets have been achieved for breast cancer and we’ve clearly seen how they are benefiting patients. They are being achieved for other cancers in some parts of the country. They must be achieved for all cancer patients in all parts of the country.”

Ms Hewitt said that NHS Trusts needed to work together to meet the targets, by ensuring that patients that are diagnosed in one Trust and treated in another are transferred quickly and efficiently.

The Health Secretary said: “Nobody is denying that meeting these targets for all cancer patients will be tough. We have a collective responsibility to maintain this momentum of reform, at both a national and a local level, if every cancer patient is to receive a service that compares with the best in the world.”

(KMcA/SP)