Urgent cancer appointments not urgent enough

An EAST Galway councillor has called for permanent investment in breast cancer services after it emerged that only a quarter of urgent appointments were given within the stipulated ten-day period.

At a meeting of Regional Health Forum West, the HSE indicated that they would be fully compliant with the requirement of offering an appointment to a patient with suspected cancer within ten working days for the month of June.

This is in contrast to the compliance rate for all of last year which was just 26 per cent.

The current improvement has been driven by temporary insourcing initiatives that were in place until the end of June with no plans to extend them.

“The contrast with the 2025 performance demonstrated the consequences of insufficient capacity,” stated Cllr Evelyn Francis Parsons.

“The drop to 26 per cent compliance last year underlines the impact that capacity constraints can have on patients.

“If services can reach 90 to 100 per cent compliance when additional resources are made available, then the focus must now be on ensuring that this level of access becomes the standard, rather than something that depends on short-term initiatives,” she added.

Cllr Parsons said that the figures clearly show that additional investments deliver results.

“The priority now must be to translate that into sustained funding, workforce planning and service capacity so that timely access is consistently available,” she continued.