CANCER sufferers were deprived of quality care after a new computerised patient record system failed to keep track of the progress of their illness.

Employees at Gloucestershire Royal Hospital and Cheltenham General Hospital were left unable to properly care for patients with cancer over the course of last year following a computer glitch.

Access for follow-ups were also incomplete because the error caused a backlog in prioritising cancer appointments.

Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was hit by a £10million shortfall after the system failed to keep a record of “all activity taking place”.

Because of this the trust was unable to bill the NHS Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) for work, including operations.

But members of the CCG board will discuss later this week how victims of cancer were hit with a shocking range of issues.

The system, called TrakCare, failed to recover performance accounts and did not have the capacity to hold the volume of patients records.

The Hospitals Trust could not comply with the NHS constitution and meet national and local targets for planned care, including two week wait over a 52 week period, to begin treatment within 62 days, a six-week wait for diagnostics and planned follow-ups.

The TrakCare system error led to:

  • Inadequate and/or delayed care

  • Long waits for routine outpatient and procedures in some specialities

  • High appointment slot issues

  • Poor clinic slot utilisation caused by staffing issues within the booking office

  • Delaying in follow-ups due to prioritisation of cancer appointments

The error was part of a £14million increase in the trust’s debt, which rose from £18million to £32million in the financial year up to April 2018.

This followed a forecast that the trust would have ended the year £14.6m in deficit.

Trust chief executive Deborah Lee told the Gloucestershire County Council’s health and care scrutiny committee that TrakCare – a computer system introduced in 2016 – failed to record, capture and account all activity taking place.

Because of the failure, the trust could not recover as much money as it had expected, Ms Lee added.

The revelation comes after official statistics revealed Gloucestershire as one of the worst in the country for referral as nearly one in five do no begin treatment within 62 days.

Figures released by NHS England last month ranked the NHS Trust 95 out of 133 in England for commencing treatment for cancer patients within 62 days of urgent GP referral.

Figures show that only 79.1 per cent began treatment within 62 days as of February under the county’s foundation trust when the target set by the Government is 85 per cent. Nationally the country hit 81 per cent on average.

This time last year Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Trust was doing worse by 8.3 per cent.

The CCG’s governing body will meet on May 24 at 2pm in the Boardroom, Sanger House, Brockworth, Gloucester, GL3 4FE