National media frenzy follows breast cancer IT scandal announcement
- 3 May 2018
The national media has been sent into a frenzy following the news that an IT error resulted in around 450,000 women missing their final breast cancer screening.
Health and Social Care Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, told MPs on Wednesday that a ācomputer algorithm failureā, which dated back to 2009, meant the affected group of women were not sent invitations before the cut off point of their 71stĀ birthday.
He saidĀ initial estimates, which are based on āclinical modelling rather than patient reviewsā, have suggested that between 135 and 270 women may have āhad their lives shortened as a resultā.
The news made most of this morningās national newspaper front pages, with The Metro running with the headline āCondemned to deathā¦by an NHS computerā while The Telegraph asked āWhy did this happen?ā (full list of newspaper front pages listed below).
https://twitter.com/BBCNews/status/991790935834025991
https://twitter.com/BBCNews/status/991790964703416320
https://twitter.com/BBCNews/status/991794096455987200
https://twitter.com/BBCNews/status/991794048510898182
https://twitter.com/BBCNews/status/991793529478418432
https://twitter.com/BBCNews/status/991791572256743425
https://twitter.com/BBCNews/status/991791002523525121
The news also attracted reaction from a number of health-related organisations, including the Royal Collage of GPs.
Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, chair of the Royal College of GPs, said the implications for GPs āwill potentially be significantā as a result of patients seeking reassurance and advice.
She added: āWe welcome the independent inquiry into this matter, announced today, but the priority should not be to establish blame, but to put measures in place to invite those women affected for screening, where appropriate; to ensure there are enough resources in the system to cope with any additional demand that might follow as a result; and to take steps to ensure this never happens again.ā
Whereas Baroness Delyth Morgan, chief executive at Breast Cancer Now, called it a ācolossal systemic failureā.
However Tom Kibasi, director of think tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), tweeted to say it was āprofoundly misleadingā for Public Health England to āspinā the error as a ācomputer glitchā and said that a fall in Ā breast screening take up in England should have flagged up concerns (full tweets below).
https://twitter.com/TomKibasi/status/991944460891238404
1 Comments
Just think of those who have been spared unnecessary investigation and treatment harm, though. Greatly outweighs the number of deaths. Quoted letter in recent Daily Telegraph:
“SIR ā It is tragic if 270 women died prematurely because they were not called for screening but, according to NHS breast cancer screening statistics, 810 women have been spared unnecessary treatment with surgery, radiation and chemotherapy.
Dr Dora Henry
Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire”
You need to consider the ‘all causes’ death rate, rather than number of breast cancer deaths.
I suspect there might have been a simple coding error – perhaps as simple as <70 rather than <=70.
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