SOUTH Essex hospitals are “catastrophically” at risk of missing national cancer treatment targets due to major backlogs created by Covid-19.

Bosses have pledged to improve services at the Mid and South Essex Hospitals Trust and have agreed a set of “legal undertakings” with NHS England to improve services.

This will include improving delays to diagnosis and treatments of cancer patients, along with governance, maternity and harm review processes improvements by July.

The trust also pledged to reduce a backlog of patients waiting for care.

It comes as the latest board papers for the trust rated the “failure to deliver improvement national performance targets in the agreed trajectories” as risk level 25, ranked as “catastrophic”.

As of January 18, the cancer waiting time was 337 patients waiting 62-days for treatment, which had increased by 142 since mid-December.

A total of 68 patients were waiting 104 days for treatment, including 13 in Basildon, 15 in Southend, and 40 in mid Essex.

NHS guidance says patients should not wait more than 31 days from the decision to treat cancer to receiving treatment.

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The trust said a cancer improvement plan is in place and bosses are seeking help from the independent health sector.

Dr David Walker, chief medical officer, said the “extreme pressure” from Covid-19 is a huge factor.

He said: “More than 60 per cent of our beds were occupied with Covid-19 patients and our critical care service was at maximal capacity despite the mitigating actions that we had taken and the aid that we were receiving from regional and system partners. Our capacity for elective activity was therefore reduced.”

The report comes after Basildon Hospital’s maternity unit was rated “inadequate” last year.

A spokesman said: “The trust has continued to provide cancer care throughout the pandemic and any patients whose cancer treatment is urgent have received care.

“We reduced the number of patients waiting over 62 days to the levels prior to the first Covid wave in November 2020.

“The impact of the second wave meant an increase in numbers waiting once again, but we have a robust action plan in place to rapidly improve the situation.”

Board members will now receive monthly updates.