Staff shortages delaying results

CANCER patients are facing delays in receiving test results because of staff shortages in hospital laboratories, experts have warned.

Only 3 per cent of laboratories say they have enough expert medical staff to analyse cell and tissue samples.

Demand has ‘grown significantly’ for pathology services but staff numbers have not kept up and the Royal College of Pathologists warns it could put clinical services in jeopardy.

An approaching retirement crisis, with a quarter of histopathologists (laboratory cancer specialists) aged 55 or over, is set to compound the problem. Threequarters of histopathology departments responded to the 017 survey, with only 3 per cent saying they had enough staff to meet demand. This would amount to 137 out of 158 departments without enough staff.

Understaffed departments said they were relying on employing locums, outsourcing or staff overtime to meet demand. The report also warned that a new test for bowel cancer – known as FIT (faecal immunochemical test) – being rolled out in the NHS would increase screening uptake.

Professor Jo Martin, president of the Royal College of Pathologists, said: ‘The cost of staff shortages across histopathology departments is high for both patients and for our health services.

‘For patients, it means worrying delays in diagnosis and treatment. For NHS hospitals, it means spending more on locum doctors to fill staffing gaps.’