Leaked NHS data reveals patients waiting five years to be seen and urgent cancer delays

Internal NHS waiting list figures obtained by the News Letter point to a system where in certain areas there is almost no hope of some people being treated – something which could involve up to four waiting lists in total.

The figures show that even those people who GPs believe are the most critical cases and whose lives are at stake are not being seen urgently but are being sent away for weeks or months.

The waiting list document covers the Belfast Health Trust, taking in multiple hospitals and regional specialisms which in some cases draw patients from across Northern Ireland.

The document, which is circulated to GPs and updated twice a year, shows that even where someone is given the most critical level of emergency referral by a GP – a category above even “urgent” cases – there are remarkable waits.

Suspected skin cancer, a form of cancer which is often treatable if detected sufficiently early, involves some of the longest delays. A red flagged referral to a dermatologist or one for suspected cancer involves a wait of 69 working days – about 14 weeks.

Suspected bowel cancer involves an almost 10-week wait for surgery. A red flagged referral for a suspected brain tumour involves a wait of about eight weeks.

Stormont’s Department of Health publishes quarterly waiting list figures which have made clear for several years that Northern Ireland has by far the worst NHS waits in the entire UK – and those figures are consistently getting worse.

However, those figures involve totalling the number of patients waiting within certain time bands – such as those waiting longer than nine weeks.

The worst category is those waiting more than a year, meaning that even those awful figures camouflage the true scale of the problem.

The last figures at the end of November showed that there were 306,180 patients waiting to see a consultant for the first time. Of those, 108,582 were waiting over a year.

In the data obtained by the News Letter, the longest waits are for rheumatology where routine appointments involve a wait of more than five years. Even an urgent referral involves a wait of more than three and a half years.

Sara Graham, Northern Ireland Director of Versus Arthritis, said that behind the rheumatology waiting times lay agony and despair.

She said: “Northern Ireland has the worst waiting lists for rheumatology, by far, across the whole of the UK.

“We know that early diagnosis and treatment for rheumatoid arthritis can halt the progression of the disease.

“As an auto-immune condition, left untreated it attacks a person’s joints, resulting in disability and serious outcomes for long-term health.

“People languishing on waiting lists are living in constant pain, leaving them prone to depression, isolation AND at risk of developing other health conditions.

“People tell us that arthritis robs them of their ability to work, socialise, bring up family and live independently. This is not acceptable. We need arthritis to be taken more seriously within the health service and for the minister to tackle rheumatology waiting times as a urgent priority.”

Last night Dr Alan Stout, chairman of BMA’s Northern Ireland GPs’ Committee, said that the “frightening” thing about the scale of the crisis was that “the worse it gets, the more we and the public seem to just accept that we have long waiting lists”.

Dr Stout said that for many of those on the waiting list, even getting to the top of that list will involve moving onto another list for diagnostic tests or treatment. He said that in orthopaedics there could be four separate waiting lists before treatment and that “each of those might be one and a half or two years”.

The East Belfast GP said that a recent study in the Western Trust had established that it could be 10 years from referral before a hip replacement operation.

However, Dr Stout, who sat on the panel which produced the 2016 Bengoa Report, said that  the “easy kneejerk reaction is just to go out and buy more capacity from private providers” but that without “aggressively reforming services” the problem will remain.

The Department of Health said that the waiting times were “wholly unacceptable” and are a “key priority” for new minister Robin Swann. The New Decade New Approach deal says that no one waiting over a year at 30 September 2019 for outpatient or inpatient assessment or treatment should still be on a waiting list by March 2021.

It said that was expected to cost about £50m and “will only be achieved by securing additional capacity” from private hospitals as well as the NHS and Mr Swann will be pressing for additional funding.

The department added that major reform was also necessary – but it would require further funding.

The Belfast Trust said it “fully acknowledges that our hospital waiting times are too long” and was “very sorry” for that. It said that it was “unacceptable that any patient has to wait longer than is clinically appropriate for assessment or treatment and we understand the distress and anxiety that long waiting times cause” but cutting waits was “a key priority for the health service”.