Cancer Treatment Options Forum - May 9th, 2010 - 3 Comments
Does anyone know how long a wait it is in England to get chemo if you have cancer?
I’ve heard it’s several months. But my wife is Italian and swears its not true.
What’s the real truth.
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There is no wait…. if i remeber correctly they told my dad that from the date of initial diagnosis they have to have had their first chemo session within 1 calendar month..
I lived there briefly. Of course, there are waiting lists for everything medical over there but if your condition is serious, something like cancer, obviously, you move to the front of the list. It’s really not as bad as everyone makes it out to be.
In 2000 a large survey based on cases diagnosed in 1997 found that the waiting times of patients with cancer in England varied across regions. The shortest waits were found for patients with breast cancer, who waited a median of 14 days from referral to their first outpatient appointment and 35 days to first definitive treatment. This group was the first for whom a maximum two-week wait between urgent referral and first appointment at hospital was proposed .
Implementation began in 1999 and the national cancer waiting times database now shows that nearly all urgently referred breast cancer patients are seen within two weeks.
There isn’t a wait; there is sometimes a wait for radiotherapy in some areas because not all hospitals have the facilities to provide it, but not for chemo. I think there would be little point in chemo if a patient had waited several months for it. Cancer patients here don’t have to wait. I actually wanted to wait a while, as I was very reluctant to have chemo and wanted time to think about it. I was told that wasn’t an option – they gave me a week.
Ohmylola is right about the time scale; I had breast cancer and was seen at the breast clinic two weeks after my doctor referred me, had surgery four weeks later and commenced chemotherapy about three weeks after that, once I had had some time to recover from surgery.
There seem to be lots of rumours especially in America about how inefficient the National Health Service is .I suspect they originate mainly from people who are opposed to a socialised system. It’s not perfect, successive governments have run it down, the standard of treatment varies across the country and yes, there are long waiting lists for some things but I think it’s still the best system in the world.
Take my experience; a hospital stay in a ward for breast surgery patients only, with surgery from a first-rate surgeon – the same one who would have operated on me had I elected to pay for private treatment incidentally – excellent nursing care, excellent aftercare, chemo, radiotherapy, a breast care nurse I can call for advice at any time, no waiting and none of it cost me a penny.
If you’re concerned that a friend or relative in England who has cancer will have a long wait for chemotherapy, don’t be, they won’t.