CANCER patients who have had tumours removed are dying because they are waiting so long for for follow-up radiotherapy that their tumours return, a government report has found.

After surgery, patients should receive radiotherapy within 28 days, according to the Royal College of Radiologists. However, in some areas, patients are waiting three times as long. In Kent, for example, the waiting time for breast cancer patients who have had tumours removed by surgery is three months.

Dr Michael Williams, vice-president of the Royal College of Radiologists and co-author of the report, said that, in addition, some patients were not receiving enough radiotherapy.

Williams said: “One problem is delays in some areas of the country and the other is that, when patients are treated, they receive fewer fractions [doses] of radiation than they would receive elsewhere in Europe and America.”

It is understood that the report, co-authored by Mike Richards, the government’s “cancer czar”, also says that the NHS is administering only about half the amount of radiotherapy needed to treat British patients properly.

Williams has research showing that, in Britain, only 28,000 doses of radiation are given per million people compared with the recommended 54,000.

Williams accepts that the government has invested heavily in radiotherapy since 2000, but he says: “Restricted access to radiotherapy services means that some British cancer patients are dying.”

The government report has been subject to repeated delays. A draft was ready in August and the document has been with health ministers since February. Critics suspect the Department of Health (DoH) will suppress it until it is ready to announce a new plan to improve cancer services in the autumn.

Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust is investigating claims by consultants that three patients have suffered a return of their breast cancer during the long delay between their operation and the radiotherapy.

Peter Jones, a breast surgeon at Maidstone hospital, said: “We have examples of people who have actually developed recurrent cancers in the breast while they have been waiting for their radiotherapy. Over the last three years, we have been aware of this happening in three cases.”

Professor Karol Sikora, medical director of CancerPartners UK, a private company set up to treat NHS patients, added: “In some areas people are getting scarcely any radiotherapy. They are often old, poor, uneducated and forgotten about.”

A DoH spokesman said: “The government has already taken action to improve radiotherapy services. However, we do know there is more to do. The report has only recently been submitted to ministers.”

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