King Charles' cancer was caught early but NHS crisis means not everyone gets prompt treatment – Euan McColm

Recent figures show 28 per cent of NHS patients began treatment for cancer more than 62 days after being urgently referred

The day before Buckingham Palace announces that King Charles is to receive treatment for cancer, I receive grave news about a friend. After seeking medical help for a lump on his neck, he’s been diagnosed with the disease, which is attacking his lymph nodes and his tongue.

This pal’s diagnosis takes the number of cancer sufferers among my friends to three. All of them have played by the rules, exercising, eating healthily and not smoking, but cancer is a determined bastard and while we may lower our odds of contracting it, it will catch us if it so chooses. If you’ve reached middle age, you’ll know just how vicious cancer is. It begins to attack our peers. If we’re especially unlucky, perhaps it comes for us.

The King is not simply another cancer sufferer, he is – through no choice of his own – a unifying figure. Sure, the odd sociopath may have taken to social media to crow about the monarch’s illness, but I reckon most us – royalist and republican, alike – want to see him recover swiftly and fully.

King Charles leaves the London Clinic last week after treatment for an enlarged prostate (Picture: Carl Court/Getty Images)

How could we hope otherwise? We know the devastating impact cancer has and everyone who survives it represents progress in the ongoing medical battle to fully defeat it; each recovery is a victory we can all welcome.

Public understanding of cancer

The palace’s statement on the King’s health concludes: “His Majesty has chosen to share his diagnosis to prevent speculation and in the hope it may assist public understanding for all those around the world who are affected by cancer.” For this, we should be grateful. Simply, anything that encourages people to address health concerns as early as possible is a good thing.

But while the King’s statement recognises that cancer affects countless people, it is the case that not everyone receives the same treatment. King Charles attended hospital last week for treatment for a non-cancerous, enlarged prostate, a common enough condition in 75-year-old men. It was during this procedure that a form of cancer – unspecified by the palace – was detected. Immediately, the King began receiving treatment.

Current treatment guarantees tell us that not everyone can expect to come under the care of doctors so quickly. At the moment, cancer patients may have to wait several months for treatment. Current NHS Scotland guidelines include two deadlines by which treatment should begin. The 62-day standard states that 95 per cent of eligible patients should wait no longer than 62 days from urgent suspicion of cancer referral to first cancer treatment, while the 31-day standard sets out how long the same proportion of patients should have to wait between the decision to treat and their first treatment.

Recent figures show just 72 per cent of patients began treatment within the 62-day standard. No Scottish NHS board met that standard last year. As for the 31-day standard, 11 boards met the target with 94.9 per cent of patients beginning treatment within the target time. Performance is not improving on either standard.

King Charles’s cancer treatment will dominate much of the news coverage in the weeks ahead. Let’s hope that renewed public focus on this damnable disease concentrates the minds of political leaders. Everyone suffering cancer deserves the same level of treatment. Right now, the NHS is failing to ensure that is so.