‘Wait and see’: low-risk prostate cancer advice

Men with “low-risk” prostate cancer should not be pushed into treatment, new guidance for the NHS suggests. The recommendation to adopt a “wait and watch” approach means that thousands of men could be spared surgery and radiotherapy. For the first time, the official advice from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence says there is no survival benefit to having treatment in cases identified as low risk.

THE NHS is losing its grip on cancer screening programmes and has allowed failings to go undetected for more than half a decade, watchdogs have warned.

The Public Accounts Committee accused officials of presiding over “woeful” failures that have seen take-up of some checks reach a 21-year low.

Its report says none of the four main programmes – for bowel, breast and cervical cancers and abdominal aortic aneurysm – was meeting targets and millions of patients were missing out on cancer checks.

The inquiry follows a string of scandals in which thousands of women were not sent invitations for breast or cervical screening.

The report criticises NHS England, Public Health England and the Department of Health and Social Care for being “overly complacent”. It says the failure to send thousands of invitations for mammograms went undetected for more than five years, amid a lack of oversight from the bodies.

The MPS found that just 71.4 per cent of eligible women in England had cervical screening, and 72.1 per cent were screened for breast cancer.