Skin cancer patients face delays of a year as NHS waiting list soars by a quarter By Shaun Wooller, Health Editor For The Daily Mail Published: 19:10 EDT, 18 August 2024 | Updated: 19:16 EDT, 18 August 2024 e-mail View comments Skin cancer care waiting lists have soared by a quarter since the pandemic, with patients facing delays of up to a year in starting treatment. Now politicians are calling for VAT to be scrapped on high-factor sunscreen so more people can afford to protect themselves. Responses from 49 NHS trusts in England show that 38,392 patients joined a waiting list to start skin cancer treatment in 2023-24.
This is up 25.8 per cent from the 30,521 in 2019-20. Also, 3,571 waited longer than the 62-day standard to start treatment last year.
Seventy-eight waited more than six months and some waited almost a year. The longest wait was at Norwich and Norfolk NHS trust, where a patient was on the list for 345 days after an urgent referral. Breaches of the 62-day target are up almost four-fold over this period, from 988 in 2019-20.
The true figures are likely to be higher as some trusts did not reply to Freedom of Information requests from the Liberal Democrats . Responses from 49 NHS trusts in England show that 38,392 patients joined a waiting list to start skin cancer treatment in 2023-24. The research was undertaken by the Lib Dems (file image) The party’s health spokesman Daisy Cooper called NHS cancer services ‘shocking and tragic’.
She called on the Governmen.