Labour’s Wes Streeting on Friday accused the Government of not taking cancer treatment waiting times seriously as he spoke about his own frustration at being forced to wait for a crucial scan.
The shadow health secretary, tipped as a future party leader, had an operation to remove a kidney last May after he was diagnosed with cancer.
The MP for Ilford North said he was supposed to have a scan in November but has only just been given a date for next month — three months late.
“I’m in secondary care now so this is a follow up scan to make sure that I’ve got the all clear,” Mr Streeting told the Evening Standard.
“It’s meant to have taken place six months after my operation, which was in May. We’re now in February and I’ll be getting my scan very shortly but people shouldn’t be waiting this long for a diagnostic scan.”
Mr Streeting’s remarks came as Health Secretary Sajid Javid declared “a national war on cancer”, using a speech at the Francis Crick Institute to announce a 10-year plan to make the UK’s care system the best in Europe.
The Department of Health and Social Care said it would aim to boost the cancer workforce and increase research into technologies which help to detect the disease in its early stages. It will also seek to tackle inequalities in healthcare across the country, including diagnosis times, and to improve prevention by addressing risk factors such as smoking.
But Labour says the number of people waiting for diagnostic scans and tests has hit the highest level since 2006 — with over one million people nationally facing an anxious wait.
In an interview to mark World Cancer Day, Mr Streeting said it was all part of a wider crisis in the NHS as it battles to clear backlogs caused by the pandemic.
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In London 870,625 people are waiting for treatment with 30 per cent waiting for more than 18 weeks. “I’m worried about the gulf between the Government’s rhetoric on cancer and what’s happening in reality,” Mr Streeting said.
