Alan Molloy went to his GP five times with severe back pain and weakness in his legs yet he was sent home and told he had pulled a muscle. It was only when his condition became so bad that he went to A&E that he was diagnosed with cancer, which had got to stage 4.
He is one of thousands of people in Wales whose cancer is not found until they are so ill they seek emergency help through routes like A&E departments. A study has found that more than a third of cancers are being diagnosed this way. It means Wales is performing worse than some comparable high-income countries.
In the first study of its kind, researchers at University College London found more than a third of patients in Wales (37.4%), England (37%) and Scotland (38.5%) were diagnosed after being rushed into hospital. In Northern Ireland, which was measured using a different definition, emergency presentations accounted for over a quarter (27.9%) of diagnoses.
