Around 200 Staffordshire cancer patients wait more than 100 days for treatment due to coronavirus
Around 200 people have waited more than 100 days for cancer treatment in Staffordshire due to coronavirus, figures have shown.
Restrictions imposed as a result of the virus has led to the backlog which sat at 273 patients at the end of June – but has since dropped.
Health chiefs at University Hospitals of North Midlands Trust (UHNM) said the high number was due to those needing treatment being vulnerable.
Due to current restrictions they are unable to visit the hospital due to health concerns – or are otherwise too poorly to undergo tests or treatments.
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It comes after Marcus Warnes, from the Staffordshire Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs), said cancer waiting times remained a "huge problem" in the county.
Paul Bytheway, chief operating officer at the trust, said: "We're aiming to reduce our backlog to around 20 people who have waited more than 104 days by the end of August.
"We're planning for it because those in the 104 category are those people who are still shielding, are clinically at risk or we're otherwise not able to treat them due to them being not well enough.
"Overall, the backlog is coming down and we used to be seeing around 60 or 70 in total per week which has dropped because we're able to treat people in 62 days.
"It worries us all but it's great to see it coming back down and we've got ourselves in a really good place now, so we're not stuck in a hole over it."
A "backlog coordinator" has been put in place to ensure patients needing treatment receive personalised updates on how their care is progressing.
Figures from the county's CCGs show around 334 people in the Midlands who received a cancer diagnosis are waiting for treatment – with around 5,000 having not been seen yet.
