Smoother pathways to faster, more effective cancer treatment for Islanders are a priority for IW NHS Trust bosses.
Getting the trust’s performance in cancer where it needs to be was listed as a target by the trust’s chief operating officer, Joe Smyth at the board meeting last week.
Cancer pathways refer to a patient’s journey through the stages of the illness – from the suspicion of cancer and diagnosis through to the treatment and recovery.
Mr Smyth said the mainland pathways ‘are still tricky and complicated’ as everyone tries to recover from Covid.
Some cancer treatments for Island patients are provided in Southampton and Portsmouth, but during the course of the Covid pandemic, it was said a considerable number of patients had either deferred or declined appointments and treatment on the mainland.
This caused a build-up of waiting times and further concern that patients were inadvertently harming themselves by delaying their appointments.
Plans have been put in place to ensure people are not missing out and services are able to fully recover and improve from the Covid pandemic.
Measures included a dedicated theatre for emergency activity, protecting the allocated cancer surgery lists; ringfenced bed capacity for cancer patients and resourcing changes in urology and colorectal departments.
One area, however, that is still a worry though is the access standard — at least 85% of patients should start treatment for cancer within 2 months (62 days) of an urgent GP referral, with long-term workforce issues adding to the problems.
Provisional figures for the 62-day standard in March, from the IW NHS Trust board papers, show 68.4 per cent, or 42 patients, were seen in the month — 16.6% below target, 5 fewer patients than this time last year.
When asked if something could be done to help and smooth out the pathways for patients, potentially through the partnerships the trust has, Mr Smyth said the pathways have always been tricky, not meeting the national target.
He said:
“If you look back over the last four or five years, our cancer performance has hovered around 78 and 82% — it has never really moved from there.
“These are difficult pathways that we finally need to get on top of.”
The number of patients affected, Mr Smyth said, was a small, a handful each month, so they should be able to be managed individually, with talks ongoing between the trust and Southampton and Portsmouth to fix the pathways.
