Novel blood test dramatically slashing waiting times in South London
- A new blood test used by South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust can cut the average waiting time for results from around 10 days to just six minutes
- The test’s speed means clinicians can move data between devices in a timely manner, meaning results can be viewed in real-time – improving the decision-making process
- it is estimated this could reduce inpatient bed stays from three months to just three weeks – saving both time and money
Personalising whole genome sequencing doubles diagnosis of rare diseases
- Tailoring the analysis of whole genome sequencing to individual patients could double the diagnostic rates of rare diseases, finds a new study led by UCL researchers
- The study’s personalised approach almost doubled the percentage of patients with a diagnosis from 16.7% to 31.4%. It also detected potential disease-causing variants in a further 3.9% of patients, where further research can now be targeted
- The NHS Genomic Medicine Service, which allows patients with rare diseases to have their entire genetic code read in the hope of providing a much-needed diagnosis is extremely valuable, however, the interpretation of this data can be extremely challenging and many people with complex, rare genetic diseases still do not receive a molecular answer to the cause of their problems
Fifth of patients missed out on rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis during COVID
- This finding was discovered by King’s College London researchers
- Patients diagnoses during the pandemic did not appear to suffer from any treatment delays
- They studied over 17 million people in England and evaluated the care for 31,000 people with new diagnoses of arthritis between April 2019 and March 2022
NHS awareness campaigns boosting prostate cancer diagnoses
- Prostate Cancer UK’s online risk checker tool, launched with the NHS, is being credited with helping to boost diagnosis numbers with 2,000 benefitting just this year
- Amanda Pritchard, NHS Chief Executive, has stated her intention to diagnose disease as early as possible to increase survival rates
Profiling the entire cancer genome identifies new subgroups of blood cancer
- The University of Oxford has led the largest and most comprehensive analysis of the entire genomic landscape of the commonest type of blood cancer called chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL) as part of the UK’s 100,000 Genomes Project
- This work defines five genomic subgroups of CLL and associates these with clinical outcomes, and these subgroups provide a better estimation of patient prognosis than achieved by previous single gene analyses, allowing more tailored patient care
‘Enormous’ digital pathology update to reduce cancer backlog
- West Midlands NHS patients are set to benefit from a new digital pathology programme that will help reduce backlog, update services, and make cancer diagnoses more efficient
- This marks one of Europe’s biggest pathology programmes – serving nearly six million people across 17 NHS trusts
- It will provide pathologists with the high-end digital equipment they need to improve their work
The Monthly Diagnostics data for September 2022 can be found here.
- The total number of patients waiting six weeks or more from referral for one of the 15 key diagnostic tests at the end of September 2022 was 463,900. This was 29.8% of the total number of patients waiting at the end of the month.
- Nationally, the operational standard of less than 1% of patients waiting six weeks or more was not met this month.
- Compared with September 2021 the total number of patients waiting six weeks or more increased by 94,700 while the proportion of patients waiting six weeks or more increased by 3.7 percentage points.
- The proportion of patients waiting six weeks or more at the end of a month has varied between 24.0% (February 2022) and 30.5% (August 2022).
- The estimated average time that a patient had been waiting for a diagnostic test was 3.2 weeks at the end of September 2022.
- There were 1,554,700 patients waiting for a key diagnostic test at the end of September 2022. This is an increase of 139,741 from September 2021.
- A total of 1,992,400 diagnostic tests were undertaken in September 2022. This is an increase of 70,972 from September 2021.
