Pandemic caused thousands of missed cancer referrals and non-Covid related deaths, report finds
An estimated 4,000 patient deaths could have otherwise been avoided
Last updated 27th May 2022
The pandemic caused more than 4,000 avoidable non-Covid-19 deaths and prevented an estimated 32,000 cancer patients from starting treatment, a study has found.
The report, from the University of Warwick, looked into the pandemic's impact on the quality of health care for patients needing treatment not related to Covid-19.
The data showed that for every thirty Covid deaths in England, there's been at least one avoidable death of a patient who did not have the virus.
It also revealed that delays to cancer referrals and treatment times saw around 32,000 'missing' cancer patients, who should have begun receiving treatment earlier.
Report author Professor Thiemo Fetzer, from Warwick University, said staff absences were a big factor:
“We see that as hospitals get hit with more Covid admissions, invariably the risk of possible staff falling sick and being absent increases, and that in turn drives the excess mortality among non-Covid patients”.
The report summarised that the huge influx of covid-19 patients during the worst period of the pandemic had the biggest impact on the quality of care provided to non-covid patients.
This period had a short term affect by worsening the access and quality to healthcare for the wider population:
- Patients seeking non-Covid-19 emergency care, for example for heart attacks, saw a notably higher risk of death.
- The increase in non-Covid-19 mortality risk was significantly larger among NHS providers that were particularly under pressure from increases in Covid-19 admissions.
- From March 2020 to February 2021 alone, there were an estimated 4,000 excess deaths among patients admitted to hospital for non-Covid reasons in England.
- These deaths could have been avoided had the patients received the usual quality of care that the NHS provides in normal times.
The pandemic also caused long term affects by limiting access to specialist care, delaying treatment and making access to cancer care more difficult:
- The percentage of patients receiving specialist referrals within the NHS’s target of 18 weeks has dropped from 83% before the pandemic to 75%, falling to as low as 66% in recent months.
- A&E waiting times have notably increased, with the share of patients receiving treatment within 4 hours declining to as low as 65% in recent months.
- More than 53,000 people have had their cancer treatment delayed past the NHS set goal and currently there are more than 32,000 cancer patients missing from the treatment list.
- The number of cancer cases receiving urgent first treatment dropped by around 2000 per month during the pandemic.
- These backlogs and delays are worse across providers that continue to be more severely affected by Covid-19 pressures and are likely to result in an increase in cancer-associated mortality.