Chaos for 5-day travel quarantine as testing firms quit Cancer treatment waiting list up 70,000 in 7 months
THE new five- day travel quarantine scheme was mired in chaos yesterday as two testing firms pulled out after being swamped with demand.
Following weeks of delay, ministers finally unveiled a list of 11 approved private medical firms where travellers flying into the UK can get a test to cut quarantine time from ten to five days. The Department for Transport’s ‘test to release’ plan was supposed to help revive the virus-ravaged travel industry ahead of the Christmas period.
But industry leaders were dismayed after the approved providers were announced just five hours before launch at midnight yesterday. They claimed the list was shortened at the last minute after ministers decided to approve tests only from providers with direct access to a laboratory. However, third party providers process tests in the same laboratories as those approved by the Government.
SameDayDoctor and PrivateGPClinic pulled out of the scheme, citing extraordinary levels of demand from travellers.
Dr Laurence Gerlis, of SameDayDoctor, which offers test results in 15 minutes, branded the scheme a ‘nightmare’. He told The Independent: ‘I am not sure the demand for this testing was estimated properly.’
Richard Burge, of the London Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said: ‘It defies belief that the Government’s long-awaited aviation test to release scheme has, within hours, proved to be unworkable.’
Paul Charles, of The PC Agency travel consultancy said: ‘It has been weeks in planning yet has taken just minutes to fall apart.’ The Prime Minister’s spokesman said 11 testing providers had been approved and officials were now ‘working at pace to secure more’.
THE waiting list for cancer treatment has nearly doubled since May, leaked NHS documents show.
Delays caused by coronavirus have seen the number of patients waiting for cancer tests or treatment soar from around 90,000 to 160,000 in just seven months.
It comes as a report warns patients face a ‘double whammy’ of delays in seeing a GP and long waiting times for vital cancer tests.
A poll of more than 1,000 people found concerns about long delays for scans to diagnose cancers of the bowel, lung, oesophagus and brain.
Cancer Research UK, which commissioned the survey, described the findings as ‘worrying’. Separate data from NHS England, seen by the Health Service Journal, shows a steep fall in cancer referrals at the start of the pandemic, causing numbers on the waiting list to fall.
The pausing of some treatments then prompted a surge in patients waiting longer, while more people coming forward for checks in the summer and autumn has seen the number of those referred for tests or treatment almost double.
Some 203,704 urgent cancer referrals were made by GPs in England in October 2020 – the highest number since October 2019.
Dr Jodie Moffat of Cancer Research UK said: ‘It’s crucial the Government uses the cash boost set aside in the spending review for the NHS to sort the backlog of cancer patients.’