THE POSITIVE PROFESSOR

SOCIAL media’s voice of calm Karol Sikora has been signed up by the Daily Express. Readers can now enjoy his soothing advice in these troubled times that have won him hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter. If you need reassuring everything’s going to be all right read Professor Positivity.

I’VE honestly tried my best throughout this whole crisis to not get caught up in hyperbole and have tried not to focus on eye-catching headlines, but I must admit some of the reports around the ‘hidden’ NHS waiting list this week have really got me worried.

The methodology isn’t perfect, but the estimates are that around 15 million people are waiting for some form of medical care – 15,000,000. I could scarcely believe it when I first read it, but thinking about it, it does sadly make sense.

In my specialism of cancer there has been a lot of focus on the two wait referrals which dropped off a cliff in April and are now slowly recovering, but they only tell a small part of the story.

Many people who have cancer get diagnosed through different pathways, emergency admissions and routine clinics. We know for sure the actual number of people diagnosed this summer is way down on previous years.

Trying to put an actual number on the overall figure of people delayed is tricky, but if it’s really 15 million then that is seriously concerning.

The vast majority of those people won’t be seriously affected by the wait. But some will still endure pain and stress which we can’t underestimate. There is profound emotion accompanying the diagnosis of cancer and dealing with this has not been easy in the uncertainty of the pandemic.

I’m sure some of you reading this will have experienced delays or certainly know someone who has.

This is absolutely no criticism at all of staff working in hospitals who I honestly view as heroes for their work. Support needs to come from the top and we need to replicate the national effort we saw earlier this year for the virus to clear the backlog.