Health Secretary under fire for decision to scrap referral targets during ‘biggest cancer crisis’
Changing cancer targets will not help patients as “failure is failure however you measure it”, a leading oncologist has warned.
Prof Pat Price, the chair of cancer charity Radiotherapy UK and founder of the Catch Up With Cancer campaign, has criticised the decision to change NHS cancer targets during “the biggest cancer crisis”.
Under new plans, the NHS is to cut its two-week urgent referral target, whereby a patient should be referred and seen by a specialist within two weeks.
However, this and five other of the nine existing targets will be scrapped as the NHS seeks to move to a “faster diagnosis standard”.