NHS Patients Developing Cancer Due To Long Waits, Says Top GP

Patients are developing cancers and enduring so much pain that they cannot climb stairs because of the 7.2 million-strong waiting list for NHS scans and treatment, Britain's top GP has said.

- Denis Campbell

Prof Kamila Hawthorne, the chair of the Royal College of GPS, said the record delays for care and the uncertainty for patients over when they would finally be seen was leaving people feeling "helpless and forgotten".

These included people with heart problems, those with signs of cancer who GPs have said need to be seen urgently, and those awaiting a hip or knee replacement, she said.

In an interview with the Guardian, she voiced serious concern that the health of some of these patients deteriorated as a direct result of the delay in accessing hospital care.

"Patients getting sicker while they are on the waiting list is something GPS see and worry about, because the risk to the patient is so much greater.

It's inevitable that some people stuck on the list will get sicker, because that's the nature of illness," she said.

"It could be someone awaiting a hip or knee replacement. They come and see you and say: 'It's been three months and I've heard nothing.' Often the waiting times for orthopaedics can be a year or two, so you know it's going to take ages. Then they'll tell you that their toilet is upstairs and in order to get up there they're having to crawl. Or it could be that their hip or knee pain is coming to the point where they can't sleep at night. That's the kind of thing we hear."

Women with persistent heavy bleeding that had not responded to treatment were a particular worry when they had to wait a long time for their condition to be investigated, because the blood loss could be a sign of cancer, she said.