Guy's and St Thomas' fails to hit cancer target

The trust’s provisional performance against the target of getting 85 per cent of cancer patients treated within 62 days from GP referral was 78 per cent in August and 76.9 per cent in July, a report to its quality committee reveals. The trust achieved only 75.3 per cent against the target in quarter one of 2012-13.

The report said performance had been “adversely impacted by late external referrals”. It added: “If all refs after day 42 were re-allocated then performance would have been close to 85 per cent. The 85 per cent standard has been achieved for May, June, July and August so far, for internal referrals, but the impact of summer on patient choice and capacity is expected to increase September breaches.”

However, the trust hit its target for emergency department performance in August and September, getting 95.4 per cent and 95.3 per cent of patients respectively passing through accident and emergency within four hours, against a target of 95 per cent. In July its performance was only 94.1 per cent.