Scotland lags far behind in meeting the demand of prostate cancer treatment

Half of Scotland's prostate cancer patients face a delay of two months or more for surgery or therapy.

Prostrate cancer is one of the most common cancers in Scotland. Bu the health officials said that the hospitals are struggling to hit their target.

Andy Kerr, health minister, asked the authorities to reduce the waiting times to make it easier for those who have been diagnosed with the cancer.

Patients who have been referred to the doctors in the end of the previous year will be given treatment within two months.

About 75% of the patients received therapy or surgery within that time. Despite all these measures there are some patients who are waiting eight or nine months for treatment.

In England also the same situation is in progress but in the last three months of the previous year their figures show that about 83.9% of patients are given proper treatment. The success rate for prostate cancer in Scotland is poor about 48% if the treatment is given on time.

Dr Bob Masterton, lead cancer clinician for the west of Scotland, said that these patients have other secondary disease conditions and quick treatment strategies are not strongly associated with a better prognosis in case of Prostate cancer.

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The Prostate Cancer Charity said that in case of Metastatic prostate cancer patients the wait is for more than two months for therapy or surgery. Stuart Danskin, of the charity CancerBACUP Scotland, said that these figures vary greatly from one area to another.

But Mr. Kerr said that the figures are proper and correct and recently they invested about £150m in cancer services to reduce the long waiting queue.

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