Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust missing target for cancer treatment, reports Simon Allin, Local Democracy Reporter

Barnet Hospital is one of the hospitals managed by Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust

A North London hospital trust has recorded “really low performance” on waiting times for cancer treatment amid a surge in referrals.

The latest figures for January show 349 cancer patients – 60.9% of the total – waited longer than the 62-day target to be treated by Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, which runs hospitals in Barnet, Enfield and Camden.

It marks a decline on December’s performance, when 48.9% of patients were treated within the 62-day target period.

Under NHS standards, 85% of patients should receive their first treatment within 62 days from an urgent GP referral for cancer.

The figures were set out in a report presented to a meeting of the trust’s board on Wednesday. Pete Landstrom, the trust’s deputy chief executive, told the meeting the cancer statistic represented a “really low performance” against the standard.

He explained that the trust’s total waiting list for the cancer patients was “the largest it has been all year” and came “despite a continued increase in the number of cancer treatments we are providing”. Pete added that although the trust had treated more patients than planned this year, it hadn’t kept up with demand.

The deputy chief executive said the figure also reflected the fact that the trust had been treating patients who had already waited more than 62 days.

“This is an area of real focus for us,” he added. “It’s an area that is probably our greatest challenge now, given the volumes that are coming through.”

Under questioning from board members about the reasons behind the long waits, Pete said the trust’s pathology provider Health Service Laboratories had been “challenged” but was now improving its turnaround times, particularly for cancer.

He added that there were challenges in the volume and availability of the workforce, while almost half of the patients that had waited more than 62 days had already waited that long by the time they were referred to the trust. The deputy chief executive assured members there were action plans in place to improve performance.

The trust’s performance improved in several other areas, with overall reductions in the number of patients waiting longer than 52 weeks and 78 weeks for treatment after being referred by their GP. There were also reductions in the number of ambulance delays and long waits for emergency care.

Pete told members that despite winter challenges and “ongoing industrial action”, there had been “really significant progress” on referral-to-treatment times. A couple of years ago, he said, the trust had the largest number of long-waiting patients for elective care in England.

The NHS has set a national target for no patients to be waiting longer than 78 weeks by the end of March. But Pete said strikes by medical staff have had an impact, and the trust estimates there will be “about 100 patients” waiting longer than 78 weeks by the end of March.

He added that there were plans in place to ensure these patients were treated during the following month, and the trust’s target to have no patients waiting over 65 weeks by the end of the coming financial year was looking “really positive”.

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