As clinicians, we know how important it is for patients to get a cancer diagnosis quickly. Patients can experience intense anxiety while waiting for a result, while delays can worsen their outcome.
In 2021, the NHS in England brought in the ‘Faster diagnosis standard’: a national benchmark for how long it should take to diagnose or rule out cancer from the moment a patient is referred by their GP. It was introduced to shorten the amount of time patients are left in anxious uncertainty and to make sure as many cancers as possible are found at an early stage, when they may be more treatable.
With the health service still under severe pressure, many hospital trusts are missing this goal. In September, about 74.8% of patients had their cancer diagnosed or ruled out within 28 days. Although that’s near the national goal of 75%, it still means nearly 66,000 patients waited more than 28 days to find out if they had cancer.
At SAH Diagnostics, we’ve developed an end-to-end 28-Day prostate cancer pathway to ensure patients get their results as soon as possible. Our structured timeline means each step from referral to diagnosis has a target timeframe. Setting clear deadlines for each assessment and procedure ensures they’re completed in a timely manner, reducing delays
We manage the entire pathway for the patient, from triage to the booking and performing of scans and biopsies. We run up to 16 clinics a day and provide rapidly reported MRI scans from our mobile units. We can also perform up to 10 biopsies a day.
We supported prostate cancer diagnosis at South East London Cancer Alliance with our 28-Day Pathway. During the first five weeks of implementation, patients under our care spent an average of18 days on the pathway — ten days less than the Faster Diagnosis Standard. During this period, our staff triaged 107 patients — almost entirely by telephone — and performed 73 MRIs. On average, patients waited 23.22 days from referral to biopsy, if they needed one.
Importantly, patients were engaged throughout their time on the pathway, with just six missing an appointment.
SAH is committed to ensuring patients receive the best possible care. Reducing waiting times and speeding up access to care both improve the patient experience. But our expert teams go the extra mile to make sure patients are always comfortable during their care and kept abreast of their progress along the pathway.
If your organisation needs to tackle waits in a particular specialty or could benefit from a broader range of insourcing support, get in touch. We offer end-to-end pathways for a number of different clinical areas and have expertise in gynaecology, dermatology, radiology, endoscopy and histopathology.
