MP Attacks Delays in Cancer Treatment

4.33.00pm GMT Tue 25th Mar 2003

A year after twice tackling Tony Blair in Prime Minister's Question Time about delays in cancer treatment, MP Vincent Cable says that new evidence is emerging that, in SW London, there are extended waiting times for treatment meaning that, in some cases, patients are passing from the curable to the incurable stages of treatment.

A document from the SW London Cancer Network (whose manager is Amanda Graham) showing the level of concern within the NHS was leaked (to the Observer).

Vincent Cable says that the leaked document "confirms what we can see from individual cases. I have recently taken up a case of a lady who has been asked to wait 6 months for radiotherapy treatment at the Hammersmith hospital, far longer than is acceptable."

"Anyone who has ever had direct experience of cancer, especially breast cancer, knows that speed is essential. Yet after all the government's talk of cancer being the top priority, care is being held up by lack of radio therapy equipment and shortages of radiographers - who remain very poorly paid.

Money seems to be disappearing into NHS bureaucracy and

improving the balance sheets of hospitals, not improving care"."

"Another commentator, Professor Nicholas Bosanquet a resident of Hampton Hill and Professor of Health Care at Imperial College, talks about a "crisis situation" developing.