LONDON, July 11 (UPI) -- Lengthening waiting lists at Britain's National Health Service are endangering lives, a leading doctor warns.
Dr. Mark Porter, chairman of the British Medical Association's consultants committee, told The Guardian the delays are "inhumane" as anxious patients are kept in doubt.
Official NHS data show that targets for waiting times for many procedures increasingly are not being met. The numbers waiting for MRIs have quadrupled in the last year, and an extra 200,000 patients were kept waiting in emergency rooms for more than four hours compared with 2010 figures.
In May, 2,313 patients had waited more than six weeks for a colonoscopy, compared with 337 in May 2010.
"It may be that someone's disease progresses beyond the point where surgery might usually give a cancer patient a potential cure, but the patient then receives palliative care only," Porter warned.
Professor Tim Evans, a vice president of the Royal College of Physicians, noted the small but growing number of cancer patients forced to wait more than one or two months for treatment as "a matter of great concern to clinicians."
