Health Secretary, Steve Barclay, is considering scrapping the need for patients with symptoms of cancer to secure a GP referral before seeing a specialist.
Instead, patients experiencing cancer symptoms would be able to go directly to an NHS diagnostic centre.
Such a streamlined system would help to “design out bottlenecks” and ensure concerned patients are screened expeditiously.
It comes amid record delays for GP appointments, with the latest figures showing that five million people a month are waiting for longer than two weeks for an appointment.
Speaking to The Telegraph ahead of the G20 Health Ministers’ meeting in India, Barclay confirmed: “We are very much looking at those patient pathways.”
Barclay mused: “Where there are bottlenecks in the system of referral from the GP, is there scope to go direct to the relevant diagnostic test or to the [specialist] clinician?
“Breast cancer is a good example because almost always the GP refers on [for scans or to a hospital specialist] and therefore there’s an opportunity to design out bottlenecks in the system.”
Current recommendations advise GPs to refer any women whose risk of breast cancer is deemed to be at least three per cent.
Therefore, the vast majority of women booking appointments with a GP for an assessment of symptoms such as an unexplained lump are likely to be referred to a specialist.
This makes breast cancer “one of the leading contenders for reform,” according to Barclay.
The move to streamline the process comes after ministers pledged to create 160 community diagnostic centres in England by 2025.
Barclay has also called upon the expertise of Steve Rowe, a former head of Marks & Spencer, to cut down on waste in order to free up more money within the NHS.
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NHS waiting lists swelled to 7.47million in May, the highest since records began.
In a bid to chip away at the enormous waiting lists, patients on the NHS are set to be offered treatment sooner so long as they are able and keen to travel for treatment.
The NHS has developed an online ‘matching’ platform that promises to provide patients the opportunity to opt for quicker treatment at a hospital or private facility anywhere in the UK.
Initially launched in January just for patients requiring hospital admission, the new system is now being rolled out to include cancer, diagnostic checks, and outpatient appointments.
In February 2020, there were 2,000 people in England who had been waiting for more than a year since being referred by a consultant.
Two years later, this figure has ballooned to 300,000.
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