
From the Guardian (UK). Of course this would never happen under the Sanders socialized medicine plan. Just wait until medical professionals and institutions are reimbursed at the medicare rates and not at the rates paid by those horrible insurance companies.
Cancer Research UK estimates 115,000 people diagnosed at stage 3 or 4, hampered by chronic lack of skilled diagnostic staff
The charity’s experts estimate that about 115,000 people who get cancer are already at stage 3 when it is detected, where the cancer may have started to spread, or stage 4, where it has reached other organs and is known as secondary or metastatic cancer. About 67,000 are diagnosed with stage 4 each year and their treatment options are much fewer.
CRUK says the numbers may be even higher because there is no record made of the stage at which 19% of more than 300,000 new cancer patients a year are diagnosed in England.
The government’s long-term plan for the NHS sets an ambitious target of three quarters of cancers to be picked up early by 2028 – at stages 1 and 2 when a cure is more likely. By that time, there will be an estimated 320,000 cancers, so at least 100,000 more will have to be caught early to hit the target.
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Innovations in testing and treatment which have been introduced in other countries are being held up in the UK by staff shortages, she added. These include scans for lung cancer and diagnostic tests for bowel cancer.
By 2027, the NHS in England needs an extra 1,700 radiologists – people who report on imaging scans – increasing the total number to nearly 4,800; to triple oncologists who treat cancer from 1,155 to 3,000; and to recruit 2,000 more therapeutic radiographers, says CRUK.
The radiology expert Dr Giles Maskell said they could feel the bottleneck tightening as the number of patients diagnosed with cancer mounted in line with the ageing population. “Extra scanners are welcome, but they will achieve nothing without staff to run them and experts to interpret the scans. It’s like buying a fleet of planes with no pilots to fly them,” he said.
Trusts are working hard to meet cancer waiting time targets, said NHS Providers which represents them, but rising numbers of cancer patients, inability to invest in new machines and severe workforce shortages, particularly for endoscopists and radiologists, were all contributing to delays.
The shadow health secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, blamed the government. “The stress and anxiety a patient facing cancer goes through is immense and these figures are a reminder that years of Tory cutbacks and understaffing has left patients not being seen on time, or waiting longer increasingly worried for test results,” he said.
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