Figures show thousands of people not getting timely access to cancer care, TD says

Vivienne Clarke

New figures released by the HSE in response to a Parliamentary Question tabled by Sinn Féin health spokesperson David Cullinane have revealed wide variations in delivery of cancer care.

Speaking on RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland, Cullinane acknowledged that parts of the cancer service were working well, but the data had revealed areas of concern where the figures were “going in the wrong direction.”

In the area of radiotherapy, 21 percent of patients were not seen within the recommended 15 working days, he said.

“It's the same with lung cancer, where 43 percent of patients were not seen on time. Prostate cancer surgery: 62 percent of patients not seen. Breast cancer, similar figures.

“And what that shows is that thousands of patients are not getting the rapid access to care which is promised. And we know that cancer care is time-sensitive.

“Every day that a person goes without treatment can have an impact on improved outcomes. And the gold standard which is set ranges in terms of the different treatments. So it's 15 days for access to radiotherapy. It's 25 days for lung cancer. It's 30 days for prostate cancer. And those time frames are set for a reason.”

Cullinane said that the quicker patients get access for treatment and surgery, the better the outcome.

In response to a statement from the HSE in which it said that shortfalls in staffing levels, difficulty in accessing diagnostics and in some areas problems with infrastructure and capacity were making it challenging to meet cancer treatment targets, Cullinane said that was “a cop out”.

“If they talk about staffing shortages, that is the responsibility of government and the HSE. In fact, we had a CEO of a major hospital in Cork last week talking about patient safety issues because we don't have enough staff.

“We have a recruitment embargo by another name in place. It takes far too long to recruit staff. So we don't have the specialists in some hospitals, and that's on the government and that's on the HSE.

“In relation to hospital equipment, for many years the Irish Cancer Society and I and others have been raising the fact that we have a lot of expensive scanning equipment and cancer equipment which is not being fully utilised because we don't have the radiographers, the radiation therapists, or a lot of that equipment is out of date and breaks down far too often. And that means that we're not getting bang for our buck.

“But worse than that, it means patients are not getting access to a diagnostic scan quickly enough.”

Cullinane said the main response that was required was multi-annual funding for the National Cancer Strategy, which the Irish Cancer Society has been calling for for years.

“We need at least €30 million a year over the next five years to make sure that we hire the staff, that we have the equipment. And I want every single cancer patient to have the very best chance to have the best outcome.

“When you look at some of the variations we're seeing across hospitals, again, it's a postcode lottery. That should not be the case. Every patient, every cancer patient deserves the very best chance, deserves rapid access to care.

"And that multi-annual funding for both capital infrastructure for equipment, but also for staffing is badly needed.”

Ireland needs a health system that utilises all of its resources, physical and personal, all of the time, for the benefit of all patients, Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has said.

The Minister was responding to reports of variations in cancer treatment around the country.

Speaking on RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland, Carroll MacNeill said this was one of the challenges the government was trying to meet, the increased demand and the need to have surgeries available on site as quickly as possible.

“That's one of the reasons, for example, that we're establishing the surgical hubs to move the non-acute surgeries, the scheduled surgeries out of acute hospitals to make sure that we have theatres available and utilised for the benefit of those types of acute surgeries.

“It should never be an either-or sort of thing, but everything has to get done. I'm looking at the utilisation of theatres right around the country. We are trying to improve how they're being used.

“I want to see a standardised start time right across the country so that every person working in a theatre is there at the same time and that we're getting the best value of all of our theatres from 7am till 10pm. The theatres should not be empty.

“We have to use the resources and the staff that we have, not in a 9-to-5 way, but in a 7am to 10pm situation and on Saturdays so that we can use theatres.

“It is intolerable that there would be theatres lying empty while there are people who need surgeries. We want to make sure that we can build our staffing complement to use our theatres all of the time to make sure that people are getting surgeries as quickly as possible. This is one of the many challenges while managing patient flow.”

The Minister said she would work on the challenge of addressing the regional variations with the different specific hospitals.