Health board reports best ever performance against cancer targets

Twm Owen, local democracy reporter

A health board has reported its best performance against cancer targets yet but has still fallen short of national expectations.

Health boards in Wales have a target that at least 75 per cent of patients with suspected cancer are seen, diagnosed, and treated within 62 days. Constraints in the system however mean the country’s six health boards are working towards a 70 per cent target.

Leanne Watkins, the chief operating officer for the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board, told its May meeting its performance against the single cancer pathway at the end of March was 67.5 per cent.

She said: “It is our best performance by some way but there are a lot of other indicators that sit behind that and support delivery and show how committed our teams are.”

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Annual report

The officer presented the board’s annual cancer report at the May meeting while she said its latest briefing for the Welsh Government, which hasn’t formed part of the report, is the average wait for a first outpatient appointment for an urgent suspected cancer is 11.9 days.

She said: “I think the target in England is 14 days so we are doing exceptionally well.”

Chief executive Nicola Prygodzicz said there had been a massive increase in the number of people seen with suspected cancers in Gwent since 2019 when 29,000 people were referred for a suspected cancer.

That figure increased to 43,064 in 2024 but of those only 4,995 were diagnosed with cancer which is 11.6 per cent.

Ms Prygodsicz acknowledged “the horrendous” wait of any length for confirmation but said: “38,000 people thought they had cancer and they didn’t.”

For many cancers national guidance is that boards reach a diagnosis and inform patients within 28 days, but the report hasn’t specified Aneurin Bevan’s performance against this measure.

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Diagnosis

At the board meeting it was also stated patients should be encouraged to take a potential diagnosis seriously straight away rather than putting off test for holidays or other reasons.

Independent board member Penny Jones urged it to share “the good news” about cancer treatment.

She said: “Cancer is frightening. Let people know about the progress as people think ‘I’ll not go to the doctors, it’s death’. It isn’t any more in every aspect. Put the good news out there.”

The report shows 58.6 per cent of people survive their cancer for five years or more across the Aneurin Bevan University Health Board area, however in the most deprived areas that figure drops to just 18 per cent.

Though cancer accounted for a quarter of all deaths in Wales, in 2022, four in 10 cancers diagnosed annually in Wales could be prevented.

The most common cause of cancer in Gwent, in 2023/24, was skin cancers including malignant melanoma with 993 cases, followed by 658 breast cancer cases, 526 colorectal cancers and 406 prostate cancers.

The health board is slightly above Welsh average uptake for breast, bowel and cervical cancer screenings but there is a 15 per cent difference in uptake for all screening programmes between the most and least deprived citzens.

Ms Watkins said the board has to have the “right messaging to encourage people to come forward” and said there is also a need for “simplistic language” as she said the average reading age in Gwent is 12.

“We need to be pretty stark in terms of messaging so people can make the best choice for them.”

She gave the example that giving up smoking can extend the life of someone diagnosed with lung cancer by two years.