Cancer patient’s 315-day wait for treatment

CANCER patients across Scotland are being forced to wait months for treatment, figures have revealed.

A sufferer in the Glasgow area had to wait 315 days for treatment to begin, while someone in the Western Isles waited 275 days, according to research by the Scottish Conservatives.

Scottish Government targets state that cancer patients urgently referred should begin treatment within 62 days.

Other health boards also recorded lengthy individual waits, including Forth Valley at 209 days, NHS Highland at 202 days and NHS Lanarkshire at 195 days.

Scottish Tory health spokesman Miles Briggs uncovered the longest waits through a parliamentary question. The lengthiest recorded was in 2012, when a cancer patient was forced to wait 399 days for treatment.

Mr Briggs said: ‘This isn’t just a one-off case of a patient having to wait hundreds of days because of a freak set of circumstances. Every year patients across Scotland are facing unacceptable delays.

‘If a cancer patient is urgently referred by a doctor, they should not have to wait longer than the 62-day target time frame.

‘If anything, with so much at stake, they should be seen to even more quickly.

‘This is just another damning statistic which exposes the SNP’s shambolic running of the NHS.’

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde said: ‘The vast majority of patients receive their treatment within the required timescales. We would like to apologise to this individual patient for the length of his wait.

‘We are working hard to improve performance for all patients affected by cancer.’

The Scottish Government said: ‘Once a decision to treat has been made, the average wait for cancer treatment is six days.

‘To ensure waiting times are as short as possible in all cases we have set up a cancer performance delivery group to focus on driving forward improvements.’