Cancer patients in all of Greater Manchester’s hospital trusts are waiting too long for their ‘urgent’ treatment, new figures reveal. Every hospital trust in the region is falling short of the national target that says 85 per cent of patients should have their treatment started within 62 days from the date the hospital receives an urgent referral for suspected cancer.
The delays, revealed in new data published by the NHS, come as one patient claims that she discovered she would be waiting 10-weeks for a first appointment at Salford Royal Hospital. The patient says she was given an urgent referral for possible skin cancer which dictates she should be seen within 14 days of the hospital receiving it.
The patient fears that other people will be suffering the same dread as her, waiting weeks while wondering whether their suspicious symptoms will turn out to be cancer. ‘People could die in that time’, she told the Manchester Evening News .
