The charity Beating Bowel Cancer has said lives are being lost because the NHS is failing to spot bowel cancer in the early stages.
After analysing data from the National Cancer Intelligence Network’s Cancer Commissioning Toolkit, the charity found wide variations in bowel cancer care across England.
In some parts of the country, less than a third of patients are diagnosed before the cancer has spread to other areas of the body.
This has a serious impact upon the patient’s prognosis, as bowel cancer must be diagnosed and treated in the early stages if a recovery is to be made.
Once the cancer has spread, a patient stands just a 7% chance of surviving five years. But if diagnosed in the initial stages, a patient had a 97% chance of survival.
Every year in the UK around 41,000 people will be diagnosed with bowel cancer, while about 16,000 will die from the disease.
Beating Bowel Cancer believes that around 3,200 deaths could be prevented if each NHS Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) achieved the same standard as the best performing region.
“Unacceptable”
Chief executive of Beating Bowel Cancer Mark Flannagan said: “It’s unacceptable that there are CCGs in England that diagnose less than one in three patients at an early stage.”
“If they all performed as well as the best, thousands of lives could be saved and millions of pounds could be freed up to be used for other bowel cancer treatments, which patients are frequently told are unaffordable.”
“This will require further improvements in screening, renewed efforts to raise awareness of signs and symptoms, and investment to support improvements in GP performance in investigating and referring patients appropriately.”
Delayed cancer diagnosis
If medical professionals failed to diagnose your bowel cancer in the early stages, adversely affecting your prognosis, you need to talk to a solicitor about making a medical negligence claim. Contact us today for more information.
Share Article With:
|
|
|
|
|
|
