Late stage cancers increase as Covid fall-out bites

“We are witnessing the consequences of Covid-19 restrictions from earlier in the year in the form of late-stage cancers. Our Rutherford Cancer Centre network has experienced a sharp increase in the number of enquiries from breast cancer patients, and a significant number of them appear to be late-stage cancers.

“As we grapple with a second wave of Covid-19 transmission and another lockdown in England, the NHS potentially faces the agonising prospect of having to reduce cancer services once more, either to make capacity for Covid-19 ill patients or to reduce the risk of cross-infection. It is vital that we do not allow this to happen under any circumstances.

“Cancer care services should not only be functioning as they were pre-Covid, but should be expanded so that we can reduce the backlog we have already accumulated. Thousands of patients may be at risk due to the current backlog and a repeat of this would be disastrous for cancer patients. It appears that breast cancer patients are already being disproportionately impacted by this. As the second most common cancer in the UK, we cannot allow breast cancer to become the forgotten casualty of this pandemic.”