Turning the NHS into a Covid service during the pandemic was always going to end in catastrophe. Dealing with a stage one cancer is infinitely easier and consumes far fewer resources than a tumour which has migrated beyond its initial location to stage 3 or 4. The entire system is now clogged up with more advanced conditions, not just cancer, missed over the pandemic, leading to more delays and more suffering. This fuels more pressure and even longer waits for everybody.
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Frankly, British cancer services should be put into special measures. Waits of months and even years for diagnosis and treatment would not have looked out of place in a third world country when I was the World Health Organization’s cancer director. Many vulnerable patients are being hung out to dry by a system which is failing the very people it’s supposed to protect.
The hands of NHS cancer staff – who are among the best in the world – are being tied behind their backs and criticism is not encouraged. NHS management should be hauled in front of Parliament tomorrow to explain themselves. For when I read statements from various politicians and NHS England sources, I’m appalled by the spin and sheer refusal to accept how dire the situation is. Meaningless word salad, created by highly paid PR managers, is spouted out at the taxpayer’s expense simply to protect reputations rather than benefit patients.
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Politicians cannot say that they were not warned. It’s all a desperately predictable outcome to a pandemic response guided by opinion polling and incompetent modelling. The big unspoken truth in British politics is that an almost two-year long lockdown experiment was the greatest policy mistake in my lifetime. Any questionable benefits in terms of “protecting” the elderly have surely been outweighed by the immeasurable damage to the younger generations. Indeed, the explosion in serious cancers may have a more serious long-term effect than the virus itself.
Anyone who doubts the impact on cancer patients should look at my lockdown inbox. Disrupting the cancer screening of young, otherwise healthy, people was scandalous. But will that ever be accepted by an establishment which threw its incomparable weight behind the measures? Not a chance, nor will the discussion even take place. Instead, cancer patients will be used as a political football by all parties to further their own ambitions.
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I have spent over 40 years in the NHS, mostly in cancer. I can honestly say that the situation is more depressing than it has ever been. In diagnostics, in treatment, even in research – and it is all compounded by lockdown delays and a depressing Westminster surrender. We need a national assembly with oncologists, politicians and logisticians to debate and deliver the fundamental reform which cancer patients desperately need. No press releases, just action.
The swathes of NHS spin doctors can stay at home and leave it to those with a background in medicine or strategy. Let’s get those best qualified to debate and devise future options. Make it a broad church, with experienced voices from inside and outside the public sector. I just don’t see another way.
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Without a national acknowledgement that there is a fundamental problem with how cancer care is delivered, it will limp on incapable of providing the service required. Any reform will involve funding, certainly in the short term, to change how the system operates. However, if some form of consensus can be reached, efficiency savings over the coming decades would save billions. Ditching the NHS bureaucracy and the time and money spent on ridiculous political correctness would release resources for more direct patient care.
It’s all a pipe dream of course. With Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer’s slanging match gathering pace ahead of an expected 2024 election, chances of genuine compromise and debate look slim at best.
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Cancer has been my life, ever since my father died from lung cancer when I was 16. We have done so much in tackling the disease and turning it from a death sentence into a controllable condition for many. To see so much of that progress thrown away because of delays and systemic incompetence fills me with anger and sadness. Countries of similar wealth deliver far more efficient and effective cancer services than we do. Should we not be learning and evolving? Or just carry on delivering the same sub-standard care which is sadly leading to unnecessary deaths?
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Remember – the NHS is not free. We all pay an increasing amount of tax to fund it, with little evidence that the money is being well spent.
