Staff shortages aiding missed bowel cancer diagnosis

Approximately 1,100 people in England could miss out on the chance of an early stage bowel cancer diagnosis through screening each year because of NHS staff shortages.

Under the FIT bowel cancer test, it is up to the individual health systems to decide what level of haemoglobin - a protein found in blood - warrants further investigation, usually a colonoscopy. And, according to Cancer Research UK, this is where patients are missing out on potentially life-saving early diagnoses, largely due to a lack of specialist staff.

NHS England and NHS Scotland have chosen different cut-off points for a referral following a screening test - 120 and 80 micrograms of haemoglobin per gram of faeces respectively. This means that in Scotland, the NHS refers people who have between 80 and 120 micrograms of haemoglobin, when the NHS in England does not. Cancer Research UK has claimed that this equates to around 1,100 bowel cancers that could be diagnosed through the bowel cancer screening programme each year in England but are not.

The charity has calculated that if the NHS in England referred people with the same hidden blood levels as Scotland, there could be an additional 2,000 colonoscopies each month in England.

One in 10 diagnostic posts are currently vacant in England and demand for staff is rising. Approximately 363,000 people are diagnosed with cancer each year in the UK but by 2035, that is likely to increase to around half a million people.

Sara Hiom, Cancer Research UK’s director of early diagnosis, said: “The UK’s bowel cancer screening programme is very effective at detecting cancer early. But we’re concerned that NHS staff shortages are having a direct impact on the ability to diagnose more patients at an early stage – something that the government committed to doing last year. People shouldn’t be slipping through the net.

“Improvements to cancer screening in the UK need to be made quickly and safely to ensure the NHS can diagnose people earlier. Even though NHS staff on the ground are doing everything they can to diagnose people early, the government needs to back them up with significant investment to train and recruit more staff so that doctors, nurses and other specialists can diagnose more people at an early stage, when treatment is more likely to be successful.”