People with cancer face ‘ticking timebomb’ due to NHS staff shortages

People with cancer face a “ticking timebomb” of delays in getting diagnosed and treated because the NHS is too short-staffed to provide prompt care, senior doctors have warned.

An NHS-wide shortage of radiologists and oncologists means patients are enduring long waits to have surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy and have a consultant review their care.

Hold-ups lead to some people’s cancer spreading, which can reduce the chances of their treatment working and increase the risk of death, the Royal College of Radiologists (RCR) said.

NHS cancer services are struggling to keep up with rising demand for tests, such as scans and X-rays, and treatment, created by the growing number of people getting the disease.

Evidence the RCR collected from the heads of NHS cancer centres across the UK and the clinical directors of radiology departments shows that delays to potentially “life-saving” care occur because of “chronic” workforce gaps.

All radiology bosses surveyed said during 2024 their units could not scan all patients within the NHS’s maximum waiting times because they did not have enough staff.

“Delays in cancer diagnosis and treatment will inevitably mean that for some patients their cancer will progress while they wait, making successful treatment more difficult and risking their survival,” said Dr Katharine Halliday, the RCR’s president.

The findings are particularly worrying because research has found that a patient’s risk of death can increase by about 10% for each month they have to wait for treatment.

Nine out of 10 cancer centre chiefs said patients were delayed starting their treatment last year while seven in 10 said they feared workforce gaps were putting patients’ safety at risk.

“The government must train up more radiologists and oncologists to defuse this ticking timebomb for cancer diagnosis and treatment,” added Halliday.

One head of a cancer service said patients with suspected bladder or prostate cancer had faced long waits to be tested, that more than 1,500 patients had to wait longer than they should for a follow-up appointment to review their treatment, and that staff were feeling “burnt out”.

Other doctors also said:

• “Our waiting times for breast radiotherapy are now the worst I have ever known in 20 years.”

• “Current wait for head and neck cancers [is] six weeks, meaning possible progression before radiotherapy.”

• “A multiple week wait for palliative treatment has sometimes led to deterioration to the point is no longer possible.”

Some cancer centres are so short-staffed that they are sending patients to be treated quicker at nearby hospitals under “mutual aid” agreements, the RCR says in two reports published on Thursday. Radiologists and clinical oncologists face “unsustainable” workloads, it adds.

The strain of working in overstretched cancer services is so great that doctors are quitting at younger ages, with some even doing so while still in their 30s, the RCR found.

Genevieve Edwards, the chief executive of Bowel Cancer UK, said: “The disease is treatable and curable if diagnosed early, but too many patients are facing long delays to start their treatment after going to their GP with symptoms. These delays may lead to the cancer spreading, making it harder to treat successfully.”

The Department of Health and Social Care acknowledged that too many patients face delays.

“This government inherited a broken NHS where too many cancer patients are waiting too long for treatment but through our plan for change, we are determined to tackle delays, diagnose cancer earlier and treat it faster,” a spokesperson said.

“We are delivering 40,000 more appointments every week, investing £1.5bn in both new surgical hubs and AI scanners, rolling out cutting-edge radiotherapy machines to every region in the country, and backing our radiologists and oncologists with above inflation pay rises for the second year in a row.

“Later this year we will also publish a refreshed workforce plan to ensure the NHS has the right people in the right places to deliver the care patients need.”