‘Worrying’ wait for cancer treatment

WAITING times for cancer treatment need to improve “drastically” in Wales in 2017, a charity has warned.

Latest treatment waiting time figures for Wales show that both the 31-day and 62-day targets for people starting their treatment were missed.

This means that in November last year 108 people affected by cancer did not start their treatment on time.

A spokesman for Macmillan in Wales said: “The impact that early diagnosis and early treatment can have on people’s cancer outcomes is well recognised.

“These latest figures confirm the worrying trend of 2016 in which cancer treatment waiting times were consistently missed.

“The urgent 62-day cancer treatment waiting times were missed in Wales every month last year until November and the 31-day targets have only been met twice in that time.

“We hope to see these waiting times improve drastically in Wales over the course of 2017.

“They will need to if we are to ensure that people with cancer are offered the treatment they so urgently need.”

A Welsh Government spokesman said: “The NHS is seeing and diagnosing more patients than ever before and cancer survival rates continue to increase year on year.

“Over the last 12 months over 91,000 people have been referred as urgent suspected cancer cases, up by 9,000 or 11% compared to the previous 12 months.

“There is still work to be done but given the volume of people who are referred NHS Wales’ performance is encouraging.”