Women face delay in tests for cancer

Women face lengthy delays in receiving breast and cervical cancer test results because of a massive shortage of senior cancer experts.

The Royal College of Pathologists warned the Government last week that NHS hospitals are short of at least 400 consultant histopathologists – almost 25 per cent of the notional UK total – and that patients were facing delays in receiving test results.

Every year, the NHS analyses cells from 4 million cervical smear tests alone, plus samples from breast biopsies and other exploratory operations. Histopathologists have one of the most painstaking jobs analysing millions of tissue samples to discover whether they are cancerous or have the potential to become cancers.

Professor Philip Quirke, a director at the RCP, said pressure of work meant many hisopatholgists were retiring early or going part time. "The UK currently has 173 vacant consultant posts out of a total of 1,436. But we estimate that we need 1,836 to take account of the growing numbers taking early retirement due to the stress of the job. We are also seeing an increasing number of part-timers."

He fears that government pledges to cut cancer deaths and improve treatment may not be fulfilled and that plans for a national screening service will not work. "Cancer targets are good but you can't reach them without the doctors. The Government wants a national colo-rectal cancer screening programme which will mean an even greater workload."

Shortages were so serious that in some hospitals "junior doctors were making life or death diagnoses without senior supervision," he said.

Such shortages allowed James Elwood, 79, who worked as a locum histopathologist at dozens of NHS hospitals, to give 222 patients wrong diagnoses.

More than 10,000 diagnoses made by Elwood from 1994 to 1999 had to be rechecked. A television presenter had an unnecessary double mastectomy after being wrongly diagnosed with cancer and another patient was left in a life-threatening condition.

Dr John Christie, a consultant at Dudley Hospitals NHS trust, went part-time last year. "Doctors are working evenings and weekends just to keep up. It's an unfair demand," he said. The workload had increased due to sheer volume and advances in treatment. "I used to be able to deal with one slide in 20 minutes. Now it takes 40 minutes because I have to do more tests."

A spokeswoman for the NHS national screening programme confirmed that figures for 2000-2001 revealed 40 per cent of women waited longer than the recommended six weeks for smear test results.