Breast cancer: Trial to diagnose patients more quickly

Charity Breast Cancer Now said it welcomed the government’s focus on ensuring more people get referred to a specialist more quickly when they find a breast change.

GPs currently refer women of any age with worrying symptoms to a breast clinic.

Breast screening, which looks for hidden cancers, is offered every three years to women aged 50 to 71.

In the new trial, women contacting 111 online with worrying breast lumps will be referred directly to a specialist clinic through the NHS app, the government said.

The scheme will be evaluated before being rolled out to any other parts of the country, it added.

Speaking at a GPs’ conference in Liverpool, the health secretary said he had heard staff and patients alike complain about “pointless appointments”.

“You didn’t go through five years of medical school plus five years of training to tick boxes,” he told GPs.

“So where there are appointments that can be cut out, with patients seen by specialists faster and GPs’ time freed up to do what only GPs can do, we will act.”

Mr Streeting said it was “a waste of everyone’s time” that patients were passed to GPs by someone else in the NHS only for them to be referred on to someone else in the NHS.

He also asked GPs not to “shut your doors to patients” and instead “work with us to rebuild the NHS together”.