Cancer patients left in limbo amid crisis

Up to 200 cancer patients in Lincolnshire are still waiting for treatment, and have yet to be given a start date, it has emerged.

Across the UK, the coronavirus pandemic has left more than two million people waiting for cancer care over the past 10 weeks.

This includes cancer screening, treatment or tests, according to Cancer Research UK.

Some 290,000 people with suspected symptoms have not been referred for hospital tests, meaning that more than 23,000 cancers could have gone undiagnosed during lockdown.

It is feared that the coronavirus crisis may have caused indirect complications for such patients.

Hospital bosses say that action is needed to stop the numbers rising further.

They added that it is one of the reasons why they want to make Grantham Hospital free of patients with coronavirus.

United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust is considering temporarily changing the hospital’s A&E to a 24-hour Urgent Care Centre.

Bosses have said that this would turn the site into a so-called “green” zone, or a Covid-19-free area.

Therefore, meaning surgery and chemotherapy can safely be carried out there.

Andrew Morgan, chief executive of United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust added that the number of cancer patients waiting for treatment is a situation which “clearly needs to change”.

“What we can’t do is let those lists is continue to run away from us,” he added.

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