The problems of the Irish healthcare system are not too big to fix, the former director of the State’s cancer control programme told an Oireachtas committee.

GPs are sending non-urgent patients to hospital emergency departments in the hope they will get diagnostic tests for which they would otherwise have to wait up to two years.

The number of Irish women forced to undergo chemotherapy treatment for early stage breast cancer more than halved over an 18-month period, following the HSE’s approval of a new genetic test.

Demands on cancer treatment services will more than double over the next 25 years, a report warns.

Just over 1,000 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer in the National Cancer Control Programme Rapid Access Clinics last year. The newly established clinics saw 2,583 men and 1,050 were diagnosed with the disease.

There has been a 73% increase in Irish people seeking genetic tests after a family member is diagnosed with cancer, according to the National Cancer Control Programme (NCCP).

A leading cancer doctor has warned that failure to progress two long-awaited radiation oncology centres in Cork and Galway would deprive patients in the south and west of services already available in Dublin.

Close to 13,000 prostate cancer tests carried out on patients who attended Mayo General Hospital have to be reviewed after it emerged the test kits were faulty.

A lack of standardisation among PSA tests for prostate cancer is worrying medics and saw a patient at Connolly Hospital receive an artificially elevated reading.

Cancer survival rates have improved dramatically in the past decade, however, the number of women dying from lung cancer continues to rise.

Doctors have warned that the HSE’s failure to fund a follow-up care plan for women treated for breast cancer will mean patients bearing the costs.

Women under the age of 50 at greater risk of breast cancer due to family history or genetic predisposition should be checked annually as part of an organised surveillance programme, according to the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa).

The HSE is to spend €3.6m a year on new drugs to assist 230 patients with advanced forms of cancer.

HSE chiefs were given the green light to buy a costly new skin cancer drug four months ago, but only made the move last night after a major political storm “concentrated minds”.

The centralisation of cancer care since 2006 has improved outcomes for patients but many challenges remain, writes Claire O’Sullivan

Patients will not ever again get lost in the system, health chiefs have promised after launching a national online GP referral system.

A POTENTIALLY life-saving breast cancer test, which the HSE initially said did not represent value for money, has been given the green light by the state after the drug firm involved significantly lowered the cost.

THE HSE has moved to defend prostate cancer service standards after concerns were raised by the independent Irish Cancer Society (ICS).

THE final decision on whether public patients will be able to access a breast cancer test that could save up to 500 women from having to endure chemotherapy every 12 months is not expected until towards the end of this year.

THE Health Service Executive has stepped in to help pay for a cancer patient’s life-saving surgery in the US.

THE controversial decision to centralise Munster cancer services at a Cork city centre of excellence is causing potentially serious access, funding and capacity problems for patients and staff.

MORE than 1,300 women with suspected breast cancer were not referred to the appropriate specialist service within the recommended two-week timeframe set down by the independent health watchdog.

THE health minister has indicated her support for Professor Tom Keane to succeed Professor Brendan Drumm when the job of chief executive of the Health Service Executive (HSE) becomes vacant next year.

PLANS to reconfigure cancer services under the direction of cancer ‘tzar’ Prof Tom Keane have angered a number of hospital consultants, among them cancer specialists.

THE Health Service Executive is denying that the country’s cancer tsar, Tom Keane, encountered serious problems in trying to kick-start the country’s reformed cancer programme and that the HSE tried to limit its success.

THE debate on the location of breast cancer treatment services is over, Ireland’s cancer chief declared yesterday.