Two-month delay to see cancer specialists

MORE than 1,000 patients waited longer than two months to see a cancer specialist in 2006 after first presenting to their GP with symptoms of various forms of the disease.

A study has found 15% of public patients considered by their doctors to have “urgent symptoms” in relation to cancer, had to wait more than eight weeks for a hospital appointment to get either diagnosis or treatment.

Almost one in five cancer patients, considered to have “less urgent” medical needs, waited more than four months for services.