Lengthy waits for gynaecological care are putting women at risk of missing out on potentially life-saving treatment, a coroner has warned. Samantha Goward, area coroner for Norfolk, has written to the Department of Health and Social Care following the death of 38-year-old Carla Smith. Miss Smith died of metastatic endometrial cancer in June 2023 after suffering a series of delays in diagnosing her condition.
The delays, for which the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in King's Lynn has apologised, resulted in Miss Smith being unsuitable for surgery or chemotherapy and was instead placed into palliative care. But following the conclusion of her inquest, Mrs Goward has warned that delays facing gynaecology patients mean others could face similar difficulties. She wrote: "The evidence I heard is that, at that time, there were significant waiting lists, even for those on an urgent pathway.
"I heard that where the expected waiting time would previously be four to six weeks, for an urgent referral, one hospital has a waiting time of 18 weeks and the other 30 weeks. "I was advised by one consultant that they do not know how they can catch up with this backlog. "The cause for concern is that some patients may significantly deteriorate while on such length lists.
"In some cases, this may mean they lose some treatment options due to their condition advancing." Mrs Goward also highlighted concern that patients on either routine or urgent waiting lists were not being monitored to see if their con.