Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

NHS Grampian’s performance against key cancer target gets worse

Aberdeen Royal Infirmary
Aberdeen Royal Infirmary

NHS Grampian’s performance has worsened against a key cancer treatment target putting it at the bottom of the Scottish league table.

Official figures show that 86.9% of patients started their first treatment within 62 days of urgent referral with a suspicion of cancer in July-September, down from 89.7% in the previous quarter.

The north-east health board was among eight boards to miss the target for 95% of patients to be treated within 62 days.

Across Scotland, 93.5% were treated on time, up from 92.9% the previous quarter.

North-east Labour MSP Richard Baker said: “These figures leave no doubt that the Scottish Government are continuing to let down patients in Grampian with this key cancer waiting time target not being met since December 2013.

“This shows the effect on patients of the problems facing NHS Grampian, at the heart of which is underfunding by the Scottish Government.”

An NHS Grampian spokeswoman said: “We are committed to meeting the Scottish Government’s 95% target for the 62 day standard, however our quarterly performance is disappointing. It should be noted that there are areas of good performance.

“We met the 62 day 95% target for breast, melanoma, endometrial, hepato pancreato biliary (HPB), neurological, oesophago-gastric, sarcoma and ovarian cancers.”

Other health boards to miss the 62-day target were NHS Highland (94.7%), NHS Orkney (90%), and NHS Shetland (90.9%).

Health Secretary Shona Robison said: “While today’s figures show an improvement on last quarter and that the number of people starting treatment within 62 days has risen from 91.6% since the same period in 2007, there is still much to be done.

“Earlier this year we put a support team in place to closely monitor health boards’ performance and immediately acting where problems are identified.

“They have visited health boards and supported them to make the changes needed to reduce waiting times as well as facilitating a sharing of best practice among the country’s health boards.”