BETRAYAL OF 450,000 WOMEN
Up to 270 could have died after breast screening blunder ++ Families’ fury that computer failure went undetected for decade ++ Health officials took 4 MONTHS to raise alarm
HEALTH chiefs were in the dock last night over a breast cancer screening blunder that may have cost 270 lives.
Families demanded to know why officials took almost a decade to spot the disastrous IT error. It was finally detected in January but made public only yesterday – four months on.
In a dramatic statement to the Commons, Jeremy Hunt said the failures meant 450,000 women were not invited for routine mammograms between 2009 and early 2018.
The Health Secretary said up to 270 women could have died because their breast cancer was detected too late – or not at all. He apologised to affected families and launched an independent inquiry.
Brian Gough, whose wife Trixie died of breast cancer after missing out on a scan, said the situation was devastating.
‘I’m amazed that it has taken them the best part of a decade to spot the problem,’ he added. ‘It’s extraordinary.’
Health charities described it as a ‘colossal systematic failure’, saying it was shocking
that it took so long to spot. The ‘computer algorithm failure’ was traced back to the start of an Oxford led trial aimed at extending breast screening to older women.
The error meant an estimated 450,000 women aged between 68 and 71 were not invited to their final screening appointment. As the scale of the scandal became clear:
Officials at Public Health England admitted they had found out about the problem in January and had even been warned of issues as far back as last year;
Ministers faced questions about whether the public should have been informed sooner – they were told of the crisis in March;
Pressure mounted on Mr Hunt, Duncan Selbie the head of Public Health England, and Simon Stevens, the head of the NHS, over who knew what and when;
Lawyers warned the NHS would face a multi-million pound compensation bill from bereaved relatives and terminally-ill patients;
Amid a frantic effort to contact those affected, letters were being prepared to go out to 309,000 women who are still alive;
One woman, who developed breast cancer after never having been invited to her final routine scan, said she was lucky her tumour was slow growing.
Launched in 1988, the NHS’s breast cancer screening programme has been credited with saving thousands of lives through early detection. All women aged 50 to 70 are meant to be invited for mammograms, which are X- rays of their chest, every three years.
But due to the fault in the IT system, up to 450,000 women aged 68 to 71 did not receive their letters between 2009 and early 2018.
Officials at Public Health England said this was due to an ‘algorithm’ problem, a ‘rule’ built into the computer program, which accidentally cancelled the invitations.
It is likely to have been triggered by the Oxford-led trail launched in 2009 and aimed at extending screening to women aged 71 to 73.
To make matters worse, some local health trusts were not aware that they should have been inviting women aged 68 to 71 for screening.
Jeremy Hunt yesterday launched an immediate review to establish exactly what went wrong and how similar mistakes could be avoided.
The catch-up letters will be sent out in batches of 60,000 over the next month.
But charities insisted the letters should be sent out immediately as many women will be extremely anxious.
The remaining 140,000 patients who were affected have since died, although few from breast cancer.
But Mr Hunt said that between 135 and 270 women had ‘had their lives shortened’ and died as a result of the scandal. ‘I am advised that it is unlikely to be more than this range and may be considerably less,’ he said.
‘However, tragically there are likely to be some people in this group who would have been alive today if the failure had not happened.’
‘Irrespective of when the incident started, the fact is that for many years oversight of our screening programme has not been good enough.
‘Many families will be deeply disturbed by these revelations, not least because there will be some people who receive a letter having had a recent diagnosis of breast cancer. We must also recognise there may be some who receive a letter having had a recent terminal diagnosis.
‘For them and others it is incredibly upsetting to know that you did not receive an invitation for screening at the correct time and totally devastating to hear you may have lost or be about to lose a loved one because of administrative incompetence.
‘So on behalf of the Government, Public Health England and the NHS, I apologise wholeheartedly and unreservedly for the suffering caused.’
Baroness Morgan, of the charity Breast Cancer Now, said: ‘We are deeply saddened and extremely concerned to hear that so many women have been let down by such a colossal systematic failure. That hundreds of thousands of women have not received the screening invitations they’ve been relying upon, at a time when they may be most at risk of breast cancer, is totally unacceptable.
‘For those women who will have gone on to develop breast cancers that could have been picked up earlier through screening, this is a devastating error.’
Samia al Qadhi of Breast Cancer Care said: ‘Hundreds of thousands of women across England have been failed by this appalling error and some have had their lives shortened as a result. It is shocking almost a decade has passed before this mistake was discovered. The number one priority must be to ensure they get all the support and information they need.’
Labour’s health spokesman, Jonathan Ashworth queried whether the Department of Health had received any early warnings about the error.
‘Ministers must explain why this issue was allowed to go on for so long,’ he said.
AFTER Labour wasted billions on useless computer systems, this country is well used to IT disasters in Whitehall.
The tragic difference this time is that up to 270 older women may have had their lives shortened by the NHS’s failure to alert 450,000 that it was time for their final three-yearly breast scan.
This paper’s heart goes out to everyone affected – not least those with terminal cancer who will now receive, too late, the letters that might have saved them.
To his credit, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has made no attempt to disguise the gravity of this lethal failure. He has apologised wholeheartedly. And though officials appear to have been shamefully slow to warn him, he seems to have acted swiftly to arrange ‘catch-up’ screenings.
Mr Hunt has also ordered an independent inquiry to discover exactly what went wrong and what should be done for those who have suffered. It must waste not a moment in its work to ensure that such a deadly blunder can never happen again.