Conservatives pledge to provide accelerated cancer diagnosis service



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Scottish conservatives are committed to introducing accelerated cancer diagnosis to improve wait times for patients.

The system, based on NHS England's Rapid Diagnostic and Assessment Centers, would allow general practitioners and charities to urgently refer patients to triage tests.

A team of clinicians, including specialist nurses, would perform these tests and potentially provide the results the same day, prior to diagnosis and any relevant treatment.

The party believes that this would significantly reduce waiting times.

The latest statistics indicate that nearly one in five (19.6%) cancer had to wait beyond the target of 62 days from baseline to first treatment.

The numbers show that waiting times for eight key tests, including those for detecting cancer, reveal an upward trend in the number of patients waiting longer than the six-week goal.

The latest statistics at the end of September indicate that 86,052 patients were on the waiting list for tests such as MRI and CT, up 10.6% in one year.

Nine out of 10 patients (90.1%) underwent tests in six weeks in September 2016 and 78.1% in September 2018.

Early detection rates for cancer are also below target, with the latest figures for July 2018 indicating that 25.3% of patients with bad cancer, colorectal cancer or other types of cancer have been diagnosed with cancer. lung cancer had been diagnosed at an early stage.

This represents an 8.4% increase over the 2010/11 baseline, but the Scottish Government is committed to increasing it by 25% by 2015 through the Detect Cancer program Early.

Scottish Conservative health spokeswoman Miles Briggs called on the government to accept a fast-track pilot project.

He said, "The SNP government is failing thousands of cancer patients every year.

"We all know that early diagnosis and treatment are essential to increase the chances of getting good results for patients, but at present, close to one in five patients does not have critical wait times for cancer.

"The fact is that patients wait too long for diagnosis and treatment.

"An accelerated procedure of orientation on cancer would allow patients to get the treatment they need much faster than it is currently."

Miles Briggs MSPMiles Briggs said that this program would allow patients to be seen more quickly (Jane Barlow / PA)

A spokeswoman for the Scottish Government said, "More people are surviving cancer than ever before, thanks to urgent referral procedures for cancer cases.

"Cancer death rates have dropped by more than 10% over the past decade and early detection is crucial for that."

She said the Detect Cancer Early program targets early detection and that six elective treatment centers are under development, costing more than £ 200 million for faster diagnosis and treatment of planned surgical procedures.

She added, "We continue to combat early detection rate changes by committing more than £ 1 million to health boards and tertiary organizations since 2016 through our Health Inequalities Fund. , to improve the detection of groups least likely to participate.

"We are working to beat cancer by investing more than £ 100 million in our strategy, as well as an additional £ 14 million to support health boards to reduce waiting times."

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