Plea after cancer patients in Sunderland and South Tyneside found to be skipping appointments over coronavirus fears

Earlier this week, the city’s Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) discussed services that were “materially affected” as a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic.

This included referral to treatment times and diagnostics, although performance for Accident and Emergency and ambulance response times had improved due to “reduced demand.”

One key area of concern included cancer services, with reports that patients were deferring appointments due to Covid-19.

“Cancer performance is perhaps the most worrying from a key performance indicator perspective,” Director of Contracting and Informatics for the CCG, Scott Watson, said.

“We knew that prior to the pandemic there were a number of issues around workforce and capacity that had affected performance, particularly the 62-day standard.

“However, as a consequence of the pandemic, we’re seeing performance issues occur with regards to things like the two-week wait.

“South Tyneside and Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust have done some analysis on this and it appears that this is as a consequence of patients choosing to defer their treatment.

“Patients are electing not to come in for urgent appointments as a consequence of Covid and the fear of potentially catching Covid if they attend their hospital appointment.

“So there’s a great deal of work going on now both locally and regionally with regards to the cancer services and looking at how they can potentially work together to create more capacity and to do the urgent cases and improve on those access times.”

Mr Watson was speaking at Sunderland CCG’s Governing Body on Tuesday May 19, which was streamed online in line with government social distancing measures.

A report prepared for the Governing Body included data up to March 2020 .

It said that cancer performance continues to deteriorate locally, regionally and nationally, and although services are expected to continue through the pandemic, they are “likely to deteriorate further.”

Sunderland health chiefs stressed that it was important to get the right messages out to the public around accessing essential care.

Governing Body member, Chris Macklin, said: “The issue for me is one of the communications and the messages that are going out to the patients in terms of the risks to your health regarding your cancer which could be far greater than Covid.

“It’s trying to manage those risks and what we’re saying to the patients to try and encourage and make sure that they do attend and get their cancer treatment.

“You can send a message one way which will be interpreted and may discourage or what I would hope is that you’re sending a message such that you are encouraging attendance.”

The meeting heard work was ongoing nationally around messaging alongside targeted work in Sunderland.

This includes the NHS ‘open for business’ campaign which aims to increase the number of people accessing NHS services for non-coronavirus medical needs.

Head of Corporate Affairs for the CCG, Deborah Cornell, said: “There is a lot of work going on around comms, particularly around the ‘NHS is open for business’ and that’s both within Sunderland and on a wider footprint.

“It’s not just about the comms but about the involvement work that sits underneath that so we understand what those barriers are and what the fears are of the public attending for treatments.

“That will support the messages going forward so we will make sure we’re pitching the messages right so we know what those messages should be for the public to make sure they come back.”

Governing Body chair, Dr Ian Pattison, added: “The NHS is open, it’s just working differently and that’s the key message we need to get across.”

The NHS remains in a state of ‘level four emergency’ with all usual contractual obligations between CCGs and NHS providers suspended.

Plans to reintroduce elective work in Sunderland are also planned but “significant waiting times” are expected, the meeting also heard.

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