A matter of life and death

IT is somewhat ironic that even as the Government battles to push its hugely controversial NHS reform bill through Parliament, giving sweeping new powers to local GPs, some of those self-same family doctors are finding their access to vital scanning equipment being monitored and restricted by penny-pinching healthcare managers.

For all the understandable concern that the coalition’s controversial reforms continue to attract, there are some areas where there is no doubt that our GPs do indeed need to be empowered. Allowing them direct access to diagnostic scans is a clear case in point.

Repeated studies have shown that allowing GPs to send patients for key scans such as MRI, CT and ultrasound, without the need for a specialist referral, brings a wealth of benefits – most notably, faster diagnosis of life-threatening diseases such as cancer.

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And in a country where cancer survival rates remain nothing short of a national scandal, this is not an area where compromise can be accepted.

Only this summer, another report was published by the King’s Fund concluding that survival rates for many types of cancer in England lag way behind much of the developed world.

“Early diagnosis” was highlighted as the key area where improvement is required. To be clear, if more patients were being tested earlier, then more would survive.

The Government is well aware of these issues, and last year made direct access to diagnostic scans a key priority of its new cancer action plan.

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Such a plan should of course be commended – but what matters most is that the resources are there to support the words with real action.

And the reality is that for all its promises of increased NHS spending, the coalition is demanding health trusts find an unprecedented £20bn in savings over the life of the current Parliament.

Already, waiting times are lengthening – including those for key diagnostic scans. Now it appears that doctors in certain areas are being discouraged by NHS managers from sending patients for scans altogether.

While everyone wants to see a more efficient NHS, the rationing of crucial services is not something which the public signed up for last May. This is, quite literally, a matter of life and death.