BCAC welcomes today’s announcement from the Ministry of Health that if your doctor suspects you have cancer, a new national health target will ensure you see a cancer specialist and receive treatment faster than ever before.
Health Minister Tony Ryall announced today that a new faster cancer treatment target will be introduced from 1 October.
“The new target will extend the scope of the current health target so people with suspected cancer receive faster access to all services from diagnostic tests to surgery or other treatment,” says Mr Ryall.
BCAC chair, Libby Burgess, comments that “Waiting for a cancer diagnosis is an incredibly stressful time for people and their families and anything that can be done to reduce this time will provide welcome relief. We know that faster treatment leads to better outcomes so we’re very happy with the new target.”
“While recent changes aim to ensure that all patients receive radiotherapy and chemotherapy treatment within four weeks of being ready to treat, the new national health target will ensure cancer patients also receive their diagnostic tests and surgery, as well as chemotherapy and radiotherapy even faster.”
If your GP suspects you have cancer, you should see a cancer specialist within two weeks. Diagnostic tests and clinical investigations will be completed in a faster, more streamlined way and the goal is for patients to receive their first cancer treatment within a maximum 62 days of their original GP’s referral.
In announcing the new target, Mr Ryall commented that, “The new target is much broader than the current cancer health target, which focuses on how long patients wait to start their chemotherapy and radiotherapy when ready to treat. The current cancer target didn’t include surgery, which is often the first treatment step for patients, or the time patients wait to see a cancer specialist and have tests done.”
The maximum 62 days is an international gold standard for cancer treatment. Currently in New Zealand around 60-65 per cent of patients receive their first cancer treatment within this time.
The new target will be for 90 per cent of patients to receive their first treatment within a maximum 62 days of seeing their GP by June 2017.
“Having a similar target has had a big effect in other countries. When the measure was introduced in the UK in 2001, about 60 per cent of cancer patients received their first treatment within a maximum 62 days – by the end of last year this had risen to over 85 per cent.”
Mr Ryall says New Zealand will see similar improvements here.
28 August 2014
