New figures from the Health Service Executive have indicated wide variations in delivery of cancer care across the country. Sinn Féin health spokesman David Cullinane said data released to him by the HSE in response to a parliamentary question had revealed areas of concern where the figures were “going in the wrong direction”.In the area of radiotherapy, 21 per cent of patients did not get treatment within the recommended 15 working days, he said. “It’s the same with lung cancer, where 43 per cent of patients were not seen on time. Prostate cancer surgery, 62 per cent of patients not seen. Breast cancer, similar figures,” the Waterford TD told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland.He said the figures, which is most cases covered last year and the first six months of this year – the prostate cancer data covered only last year -, showed thousands of patients were not getting the required rapid access to time-sensitive cancer care. “Every day that a person goes without treatment can have an impact on improved outcomes. And the gold standard which is set ranges in terms of the different treatments. So it’s 15 days for access to radiotherapy. It’s 25 days for lung cancer. It’s 30 days for prostate cancer. And those time frames are set for a reason,” Cullinane said.Cullinane said the quicker patients get access for treatment and surgery, the better the outcome.Cullinane said a HSE statement that said shortfalls in staffing levels, difficulty in accessing diagnostics and, in some areas, problems with infrastructure and capacity were making it challenging to meet cancer-treatment targets was “a cop out”.“If they talk about staffing shortages, that is the responsibility of Government and the HSE. In fact, we had a CEO of a major hospital in Cork last week talking about patient safety issues because we don’t have enough staff.“We have a recruitment embargo by another name in place. It takes far too long to recruit staff. So, we don’t have the specialists in some hospitals, and that’s on the Government and that’s on the HSE.” Cullinane, who acknowledged that parts of the cancer service were working well, said “a lot of expensive scanning equipment and cancer equipment” was going unused in hospitals due to a lack of staff to operate or maintain it. “And that means that we’re not getting bang for our buck,” he said. “But worse than that, it means patients are not getting access to a diagnostic scan quick enough.”Cullinane called for multiannual funding for the National Cancer Strategy. He said at least €30 million was needed each year for the next five years to hire the necessary staff. Responding to the reports of variations in cancer treatment around the country, Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said the Government was trying to ensure demand for surgery was met everywhere. “That’s one of the reasons, for example, that we’re establishing the surgical hubs to move the non-acute surgeries, the scheduled surgeries out of acute hospitals to make sure we have theatres available and utilised for the benefit of those types of acute surgeries,“ she said.“It should never be an either-or sort of thing but everything has to get done. I’m looking at the utilisation of theatres right around the country. We are trying to improve how they’re being used.”“I want to see a standardised start time right across the country so that every person working in a theatre is there at the same time and that we’re getting the best value of all of our theatres from 7am until 10pm. The theatres should not be empty. “We have to use the resources and the staff that we have, not in a nine-to-five way, but in a 7am-to-10pm situation and on Saturdays so that we can use theatres.“It is intolerable that there would be theatres lying empty while there are people who need surgeries. We want to make sure that we can build our staffing complement to use our theatres all of the time to make sure that people are getting surgeries as quickly as possible. This is one of the many challenges while managing patient flow.”The Minister said she would work on the challenge of addressing regional variations with the different specific hospitals.