There’s a brilliant blog post that I saw recently that was originally published in the Nursing Times. The article talks about how NHS cancer treatment has not recovered from being paused during the Covid pandemic.
The article, by Lucy Gossage, makes for heartbreaking reading. It tells of patients whose cancers might have been cured or sent into remission but for the change in priorities that the NHS went through due to Covid.
Ms Gossage said:
We always knew COVID-19 would change oncology immeasurably; I’ve written about this before. But right now, for many of us, the care we are able to offer our patients with cancer is worse than it’s been at any point since COVID-19 first hit the UK. Early in the pandemic, we were asked to prioritise cancer treatments from priority one (curative treatment) to priority six (non-curative treatment with a small chance of palliation or temporary tumour control). This prioritisation system has been used intermittently across the country during the pandemic but where I work, though capacity to deliver chemotherapy has been exceptionally tight at times, we’ve never had to use it. Until now. Right now we don’t have the staffing capacity to deliver chemotherapy to all our patients and so, for the first time, the prioritisation list has come into force. And that means that, currently, we are unable to offer chemotherapy that aims to prolong life or palliate symptoms for many people with advanced cancer. We hope this is very temporary, but it’s indicative of a system on its last legs; as of June 2021 there were 38,952 registered nurse vacancies across the health service*. And this has happened at the end of the summer, well before the NHS winter pressures stockpile.
I find myself in agreement with Ms Gossage’s statement that Britain’s cancer treatment service is ‘not First World’. Where I vehemently disagree with her is when she says that she ‘loves the NHS’. I don’t love the NHS, on the contrary I despise it for its inefficiency, its failed management, its waste and sometimes its cruelty to patients. Whilst recognising that within the NHS there are some good staff I also have to recognise that its a failed system that no other nation has attempted to copy in its entirety. Britons deserve better than we get from the NHS. We pay for a system that fails far too often and we really don’t deserve that. Instead of being proud of the NHS we should be ashamed of it and want radical change to it.
There really is no excuse for this. Early treatment is vital for giving people the best chance of surviving cancer. Using Covid as an excuse not to provide it is unforgivable.
First of all apologies to you and others for not replying to comments as quickly as I would have liked to do. We’ve had our week long Harvest Festival (which involves dwelling in a roofless tent) and I’ve been child wrangling a mini danger man LOL which has diverted me somewhat. I’ll get around to answering neglected comments as and when I can.
I agree that there’s no excuse for this. Whilst some disturbance while the NHS concentrated on covid would be understandable the situation regarding covid is now stabilising and the NHS should be getting back to some semblance of normal service. The fact that it is not is scandalous. Covid and the response to it has shown up the weaknesses of the NHS as a system. We deserved much better than what we are getting from the NHS and it is an utter scandal that the NHS can’t find nursing staff to administer chemotherapy to cancer patients but can find resources to employ worthless and damaging ‘diversity and inclusion’ staff.