Cancer patients face treatment delays due to hospital staff shortages, doctor warns
Cancer patients could be hit with delays for treatment over shortages of hospital staff, according to a leading doctor.
A memo, circulated to staff at Churchill Hospital in Oxford and leaked to the press, warned the number of chemotherapy cycles offered to terminally ill patients would need to be cut because there are too few staff trained to deal with medication.
The memo by head of chemotherapy for the Trust, Dr Andrew Weaver, read: "Currently we are down approximately 40% on the establishment of nurses on DTU [day treatment unit] and as a consequence we are having to delay chemotherapy patients' starting times to four weeks."
According to The Times (£), the memo also suggested cutting back on treatment to alleviate symptoms for cancer patients, in some cases from six cycles to four.
"I know that many of us will find it difficult to accept these changes but the bottom line is that the current situation with limited numbers of staff is unsustainable," the memo said.
The move comes days after the Prime Minister said the NHS is "better prepared than ever" when challenged over concerns about its ability to cope against mounting winter pressures.
In a statement, an Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust spokesman said it meets the national cancer waiting time standard of starting chemotherapy within 31 days of a clinical decision having been made, despite increases in cancer patients.
The statement added: "We have not made any decisions to delay the start of chemotherapy treatment or to reduce the number of cycles of chemotherapy treatment which patients with cancer receive.
"The internal email from Dr Andrew Weaver sets out some of the challenges facing our chemotherapy service, with his ideas for how to tackle these issues, and invites constructive comments and alternative proposals from other cancer doctors and clinical staff.
"However, it does not represent a change to our formal policy for chemotherapy treatment. No such change has been agreed by Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.
"We would like to reassure our patients that no changes to chemotherapy treatment have been made or will be made before thorough consideration has been given to all possible options."