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Just 36% of A&E cancer diagnoses survive one year, GPs have legal duty to report FGM, and CCGs scrapping IVF funding

A quarter of London patients who are diagnosed with cancer after attending A&E die within two months, according to research by Cancer London, which emphasises the need for early diagnosis.

The Guardian reports that, across nine acute trusts running A&E departments between January and August 2013, average survival among 963 patients diagnosed with cancer was less than six months, and only 36% were alive beyond a year.

Study author Professor Kathy Pritchard-Jones, said: ‘We need to find ways to diagnose patients earlier, and through managed pathways. This is crucial to improving the UK’s cancer survival to the standard of comparable countries.’

GPs now have a legal duty to report cases of female genital mutilation to the police or face disciplinary action that could lead to them being barred from practising, the BBC reports.

Under new mandatory reporting regulations that were introduced at the end of October doctors have until the end of the next working day to report any cases of female circumcision that are thought to affect 137,000 people in England and Wales.

Public Health Minister Jane Ellison said: ‘The tools we are providing will empower NHS staff and support them in strengthening their safeguarding response for our girls who are at risk, and better protect and care for those living with FGM.’

And the Independent reports patients are increasingly being denied fertility treatment on the NHS as CCGs place restrictions on funding or halt treatments all together to cut costs.

The paper states NHS Mid and North East Essex CCG is the first in the country to stop funding treatment for healthy couples, with NHS Basildon and Brentwood CCG also saying they will cut funding from three cycles to zero.

Pulse has previously shown how CCGs, including NHS Basildon and Brentwood CCG, have been increasing raising referral thresholds or cutting funding for treatment like vasectomy.


          

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