Call for better bowel cancer care

BBC News

There are still gaps in bowel cancer surgery care, an audit suggests.

Bowel cancer is a common form of the disease

The review of 41,000 cases from 2006 to 2008 showed that too many patients were still not getting access to specialist nurses and the proper tests.

But the audit, led by the NHS Information Centre and specialist bowel cancer surgeons, also showed post-surgery death rates were improving.

Experts welcomed the progress, but urged the NHS in England and Wales to tackle the remaining problems.

Bowel cancer care is the third most common cancer and cuases about 16,000 deaths a year, predominantly in the over 60s.

While the audit showed death rates within 30 days of surgery had fallen from 7% in 2001 to 4.5%, several weak areas of care were also highlighted.

Just half of patients received support from specialist nurses despite NHS recommendations that all cancer patients should get it.

A quarter of patients were not getting access to specialist scans to check the progress of their disease.

The report also said more should be done to ensure patient cases were properly reviewed by a range of experts.

NHS guidelines demand that radiologists, pathologists, anaesthetists and surgeons are all involved in discussing care, but this only happened in 84% of cases.

However, in all three areas standards had improved slightly since the previous audit. Read more...