Bid to rescue Tayside breast cancer service

TREATMENT: Plan to cut waiting times with staff from other health boards

Scandal-hit NHS Tayside’s breast cancer service faces being rescued by other health boards in a bid to improve waiting times. The board has appealed for help in providing clinical staff to supplement services provided for advanced cancer patients along with an action plan to turn things around. The “remobilisation” aims to cut lengthy waits by running clinics over weekends, and with help of staff drafted in after talks with officials from Glasgow and Edinburgh. While NHS Tayside is meeting treatment time targets for now, there are already longer than average waits for GP referrals. These have sparked concerns which led to the action plan, amid the spectre of far deeper problems raised by the departure of several members of oncology staff. Those prompted NHS Tayside chief executive Grant Archibald to warn Holyrood’s public audit committee last month he was unable to guarantee the future of breast cancer treatment in the region.

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 currently 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 neo-adjuvant 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 31day target for patients diagnosed with cancer to begin treatment and 62day 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. The health board’s oncology team was thrown into turmoil in early 2019 following the revelation that around 200 patients were given lower-thanstandard doses of chemotherapy drugs in a bid to reduce harmful side effects. A Scottish Governmentcommissioned review said the treatment resulted in a 1-2% increased risk of their cancer recurring but a series of investigations revealed one of the experts behind the claim privately admitted it was “flawed, probably, but the best that could be done”. Doctors in Tayside claimed the review was “deeply flawed”, reported being physically threatened following its publication and hit out at health bosses for throwing them “under the bus” over the reports. North East MSP Jenny Marra, who is convener of the public audit committee, last month called on Nicola Sturgeon to step in and secure the future of breast cancer treatment in Dundee and raised the issue again during first minister’s questions yesterday. Ms Marra fears women in the region will not travel to Edinburgh or Aberdeen for breast cancer treatment and will go untreated. 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. “I asked the first minister about this a month ago. She said she would get more detail and come back to me. I’ve heard nothing.” Ms Sturgeon said action is already being taken. An NHS spokeswoman said: “We have a remobilisation plan in place in which extra resources have been identified and there will be additional clinics provided, including at weekends, to improve the waiting times in the coming weeks. “The plan will see the urgent and routine waiting times delivered within the national standard by the end of May 2021.”