ONCOLOGY
should be restored in cancer service safety.
l The NHS needs to routinely collect cancer data based on deprivation and ethnicity.
l Care for people with incurable cancer must be improved.
l Cancer screening must be restored and expanded.
l Involvement of cancer charities must be maintained and strengthened.
l New pathways adopted during the pandemic should be adopted permanently where appropriate.
l Benefits of remote cancer services must be evaluated.
l The NHS must increase capacity for harnessing real-time data on cancer, so that data can be acted upon promptly.
l Cancer treatment trials must be fully reopening and expanded.
Commenting on the report, Baroness Nicola Blackwood, deputy chair of healthcare and life sciences at PPP, said: “The calamitous impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on UK cancer treatment has again highlighted the urgent need for an overhaul of every aspect of our cancer services. However, these profound impacts are as much a symptom of the underlying weaknesses of cancer care as a measure of the severity of the pandemic. “We have known for years that our diagnostic equipment is scarce and obsolete, that the cancer workforce is too small to meet even current, let alone future, demand, that there are too few intensive care beds and that people are dying because treatment comes too late.” David Long, business unit director,
Oncology, MSD, said: “The way that the health community has come together to combat the COVID-19 pandemic is tremendous. This was particularly demonstrated in cancer services through efforts to keep patient pathways open and flexible to the evolving situation. It continues to be demonstrated as everyone pulls together to recover those cancer services. “However, it is well recognised that the system was by no means perfect for clinicians or cancer patients before the pandemic.”
He highlighted the need to “come back from the pandemic with a system that is better than the one that went before it” and to continue “the spirit of collaboration that has achieved such significant change in such a short period of time.”
Conclusion Ultimately, rebuilding cancer services post-pandemic will be challenging. It will require major efforts to reassure the public that services are safe, as well as media campaigns to encourage people to act on any concerns around possible symptoms, and engage with screening services. It
will also require increased funding and investment in training and recruitment, as the reports highlighted in this article clearly point out. However, the scale of the issue around training is significant. The Royal College of Radiologists’ latest census of clinical oncologists, for example, has found that the NHS needs at least another 189 clinical oncologists to meet demand. More than half of UK cancer centre clinical directors (52%) say oncologist shortages are negatively impacting patient care and this year’s newly trained consultants will only fill 55% of vacancies.
There are other staff shortages across the cancer pathway that will need to be addressed, including: histopathologists, clinical radiologists, diagnostic radiographers, specialist cancer nurses, therapeutic radiographers and gastroenterologists. This will require a long-term strategy. Cancer Research UK estimates that it will cost Health Education England between £142 million and £260 million more than it already invests to grow the key cancer professions by 45%.6
At the same time, there are lessons to be learnt from the pandemic in how cancer pathways can be re-imagined and delivered in community settings, along with
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a greater role for digital health technologies to reduce the need for hospital visits and the associated risk of infection.
The UK continues to lag behind many other nations in terms of cancer survival and if we do not urgently tackle the backlog caused by COVID-19, with significant investment in people, public health strategies, technology and research, the gap may widen even further.
References 1
https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/2501357- nearly-half-of-people-with-potential-cancer- symptoms-in-first-wave-of-pandemic-did-not- contact-gp,-study-finds
2
https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/2534678- more-than-one-in-five-people-less-likely-to- attend-cancer-screening-post-pandemic
3
https://medium.com/macmillan-press-releases- and-statements/macmillan-responds-to-may- 2021s-cancer-waiting-times-data-for-england- a7ca159cab1e
4
https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/ uploads/2020/10/BM2025Pu-item-5-diagnostics- recovery-and-renewal.pdf
5
https://publicpolicyprojects.com/publications/how- to-re-engage-patients-with-cancer-pathways/
6
https://news.cancerresearchuk.org/2020/10/12/ nhs-staff-shortages-whats-needed-to-build-a- sustainable-cancer-workforce/
SEPTEMBER 2021
CSJ
©Dan Kosmayer -
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