Media Monitoring: 3 June – 9 June

A total of 2,016,200 diagnostic tests were undertaken in April 2023. This is an increase of 165,300 from April 2022.
The total number of patients waiting six weeks or more from referral for one of the 15 key diagnostic tests at the end of April 2023 was 430,800. This was 27.6% of the total number of patients waiting at the end of the month.
An alternative measure of diagnostic waiting times is the average (median) waiting time. The estimated average time that a patient had been waiting for a diagnostic test was 3.3 weeks at the end of April 2023.
There were 1,563,400 patients waiting for a key diagnostic test at the end of April 2023. This is an increase of 16,400 from April 2022.

Purdue University researchers have developed a urine test for early-stage Parkinson’s disease, which involves isolating extracellular vesicles of neural origin from urine samples and then assessing the proteins within the vesicles to detect biomarkers of the disease.
This could allow non-invasive diagnosis of a variety of diseases that can affect the protein content of extracellular vesicles in urine.
Parkinson’s disease can be very difficult to diagnose and requires a number of tests, however, researchers claim that they have found much promise in the technology’s ability to detect Parkinson’s biomarkers.

Live Oral Questions: Department of Health and Social Care

Kate Hollern (Blackburn) asked what steps the Minister is taking to improve cancer waiting times and outcomes.
Responding, Health and Social Care Secretary Steve Barclay stated that patients are being diagnosed faster with 75% receiving a diagnosis and 90% of that figure then began care.
Maggie Throup (Erewash, Conservative) asked if more community diagnostics centres will be introduced in local communities.
Responding, Health and Social Care Secretary Steve Barclay said the Department agrees that community diagnostic centres are beneficial.

A novel test which focused on seven chemicals in uterine fluid was found to be more effective than the leading tool for diagnosing early-stage ovarian cancer.
The most common ovarian cancer, epithelial ovarian cancer, is also one of the deadliest with fewer than a third of patients diagnosed living more than five years.
The new test was found to be more effective than the existing CA125 test, having been tested on around 200 women, but while promising the test requires broader validation before adopting at scale.

Gonorrhoea rates rose fifty percent between 2021-2022, the highest rise since 1918.

UK PM Rishi Sunak has used his short trip to Washington to try to position the UK as nation best-placed to be at the centre AI regulation.
Downing Street is hopeful that US President Joe Biden will agree to support the Prime Minister’s AI summit to be held in Autumn 2023.
The summit would give companies and countries the opportunity to identify potential future dangers of AI if the technology is not adequately regulated.