Hundreds of Northants women suspected of having breast cancer were not screened in required time during pandemic

More than 200 women urgently referred to Northampton General Hospital (NGH) with suspected breast cancer had to wait longer than they should have for screening this spring and summer.

NGH recorded hundreds of breaches of the two-week wait screening target for breast cancer after it shut down its screening service due to Covid-19 from March until July.

All hospitals have a target of seeing 93 per cent of all referrals within two weeks but in July only 24 per cent of those referred by GPs to NGH were seen in time with 115 women having to wait longer then they should have that month.

In March 78 referrals breached the two week wait limit, 51 in April, 19 in May and 81 in June.

The breaches have been recorded in an NGH performance report which will go before the county’s clinical commissioning group’s governing body tomorrow (Oct 20). In contrast Ketetrng General Hospital saw almost all urgent breast referrals within two weeks.

The Northampton break down shows that waits for breast cancer screening were by far the most affected during the pandemic.

A spokesman for the hospital said targets were now being met.

They said: “Breast screening was stopped on the 23rd March 2020. This was in line with other units and a national pause on the screening service due to COVID-19. During this time our screening department, the Forrest Centre, was never completely closed. This allowed us to continue with some symptomatic breast work (2ww) and we re-started other screening on 8th July 2020.

“The decision was taken following discussions from the service lead at NGH, the senior NGH team, the Screening Quality Assurance Service (SQAS) and the commissioners (PHE). Following the decision to stop screening, some radiography staff were redeployed to assist in the main radiology department, A&E and surgery.

“At the beginning of the pandemic, all breast referral patients had a telephone consultation with a breast surgeon and those patients triaged as of higher risk were asked to attend a face to face appointment which included breast radiology. The telephone triage was an added step in the pathway which in turn caused more two week wait breaches, however this new step was vital in maintaining patient and staff safety.

“There are recovery/reset plans that are discussed at the specific cancer reset meeting held weekly this also feeds into a system wide Phase 3 reset plan that is overseen by NHS E/I. Our teams have worked incredibly hard to ensure the target level is back on track. This has included hosting additional weekend clinics and evening clinics to support patients to attend their appointments and be seen quickly.”

Across the Northamptonshire CCG area the two week rate for all cancers in July was 73 per cent during July against a 93 per cent target.

Hospital services were severely impacted this spring and summer as hospitals focussed on the covid effort, redeploying staff to cope with the unprecedented situation.

Research charity Breast Cancer Now estimates that more than one million women missed their mammogram screening due to the pandemic and estimates 8,600 women caught up in the backlog could be living with undetected breast cancer.