Fast-track pancreatic cancer surgery boosts success, saves money

Accelerating access to pancreatic surgery has been shown to boost success rates by more than a fifth with a cost saving to the NHS of around £3,200 per patient. A pilot treatment pathway for pancreatic cancer, funded by Pancreatic Cancer UK and held at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, slashed the average time to surgery from two months to just over two weeks. Referrals for patients were sped up and the way surgery was carried out was reorganised, while the team also cut out a treatment generally given to patients before surgery for the symptoms of jaundice, which reduced the time to surgery from an average of 65 days to 16 days.