Frantic bid to shore up ailing breast cancer service in Tayside

NHS Tayside has been forced to make a plea to other health boards to help shore up its ailing breast cancer service in the wake of a chemotherapy treatment scandal, it can be revealed.

Clinical teams in the region are in advanced discussions with officials from Glasgow and Edinburgh to provide clinic sessions for advanced breast cancer patients in Tayside.

The health board has also launched a “remobilisation plan”, which includes weekend clinics, to help turn around its waiting times, described as an “eternity” by a local MSP.

It comes after chief executive Grant Archibald told Holyrood’s public audit committee he is unable to guarantee the future of services in the region following the departure of several staff members from the oncology team.

Clinics are already being supported by a consultant oncologist from NHS Grampian, who has been seeing all new neoadjuvant breast cancer chemotherapy patients in Tayside since September 2020, and the board will lose another consultant in mid-April.

NHS Tayside is currently meeting the national 31-day target for patients diagnosed with cancer to begin treatment and 62-day target for those referred with an urgent suspicion of cancer to begin treatment.

However, there are already longer average wait times for urgent and routine referrals from a GP, with urgent referrals waiting seven weeks and routine referrals waiting 17 weeks, against a national target of 12 weeks.

North East MSP Jenny Marra last month called on Nicola Sturgeon to step in and secure the future of breast cancer treatment in Dundee and raised the issue again at first minister’s questions yesterday.

Ms Marra said: “Breast cancer waiting times in Tayside are now 17 weeks from GP referral to first appointment. As the first minister knows, this is a severe breach of government recommended maximum waiting times and an eternity for patients.”

Jenny Marra raised the issue at Holyrood yesterday.