10,000 cancer cases spotted late every year

ALMOST 10,000 cancer patients are being diagnosed too late because of variations in NHS care, figures reveal.

In the case of skin cancer, sufferers in some English counties are almost four times more likely to have their melanoma detected late than those living elsewhere.

Experts say the discrepancies are partly due to GPs failing to spot less obvious warning signs and not sending patients for urgent hospital scans.

Some family doctors are being offered up to £6,000 a year to cut the numbers referred to hospital, including for cancer tests.

Researchers also blame the differences on their relationships with patients as many sufferers are reluctant to seek help for fear of being a nuisance. But cancer is far easier to treat if caught before stage 3 and 4, when tumours have spread to other organs or tissue. In stage 1 and 2, the disease is still confined to one organ.

The gulf between counties in 2012 and 2013 goes some way to explaining why UK survival rates lag behind those in other European countries.

This is the first time academics from Cancer Research UK could compare in such detail the number of patients diagnosed at a late stage in different areas.

Almost half of all cancer patients in Merseyside – 48.77 per cent – were diagnosed in stage 3 or 4. But in Bath, Gloucestershire, Swindon and Wiltshire, the figure was 40.26 per cent. The study calculated that if all patients were diagnosed as promptly as those in this area, then 20,000 more would have been spotted early in 2012 and 2013 – an average of 10,000 a year. Researchers found starker variations when they compared different cancers.

Women with breast cancer were twice as likely to be diagnosed late in London compared to Leicestershire and Lincolnshire.

On average, 22 per cent of cases are detected in stage 3 and 4 in London while the rate was 10 per cent in the other two counties.

For melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, only 4 per cent of patients were diagnosed in stage 3 and 4 in Durham, Darlington and Tees. But this rises to 14 per cent in West Yorkshire.

East Anglia had the highest early detection for bowel cancer but the lowest for melanoma.

Sara Hiom, director of early diagnosis at Cancer Research UK, said: ‘It’s unacceptable to see such variation. We need to ensure that people with unusual or persistent changes to their bodies seek help. We need a system where GPs are supported in the diagnosis of cancer and there are the resources to ensure patients can be investigated promptly.’

Dr Maureen Baker, chairman of the Royal College of GPs, blamed the variation on a ‘number of reasons’ not just poor medical practice among family doctors.

‘Need to ensure people seek help’