§ Dr. GibsonTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what plans he has to conduct an audit of the two week wait rule of suspected cancer referrals. [174160]
§ Miss Melanie JohnsonA two week outpatient waiting time standard was introduced for all urgent referrals of suspected cancer during 2000. The Department has no plans to carry out an audit of the two week wait but all trusts have been encouraged to undertake local audit to assess the impact of the two week wait on local services and to enable the appropriateness of urgent and routine referrals against the guidelines to be fed back to referring general practitioners. The Department has commissioned the University of York, in 2003, to undertake a systematic review of two week wait audits carried out by professional bodies, trusts and cancer networks.
The latest results of the quarterly monitoring show that 98 per cent. of all urgent referrals for suspected cancer were seen within two weeks.