ONE in ten urgent suspected cancer patients must wait longer than they should to be seen at Wycombe Hospital, say health bosses.

The hospital has cancelled some consultants' leave this summer and put on extra clinics so they can see more patients.

Government targets say people with suspected cancer should see a consultant within two weeks of their doctor urgently requesting an appointment.

A hospital spokesman said that people were only having to wait a matter of days extra for their appointment but two weeks meant two weeks and the trust had to meet the target.

Wycombe, Stoke Mandeville and Milton Keynes are all failing to meet the targets but Wycombe is the worse. All are drawing up action plans to ensure they meet them.

In June, 11 patients with urgent suspected breast cancer did not see a consultant within two weeks, almost a third of those referred. Four patients with suspected urological cancer were kept waiting. This was was half of the referrals and is the main problem area for the hospital.

A report to the trust board said the main problem for urological patients was the weight of numbers.

The hospital is recruiting a specialist nurse, who will start in September, and putting £50,000 into the system.

Breast cancer clinics are working at capacity and holidays do not help. Routine clinic appointments will be reduced so more urgent patients can be seen.

There will be money for an extra breast clinic and more sessions from a breast surgeon.

In May in Bucks there were 250 urgent referrals, with 222 (88.8 per cent) seen within two weeks. In February the overall figure was 93 per cent.

At hospital level in May there were three breaches at Stoke Mandeville (3.6 per cent), 11 at Milton Keynes (13.9 per cent ) and 14 at South Bucks (16.1 per cent).

Finance director of Bucks Health Authority Martin Cutler said there are a number of reasons for the increasing number of breaches of the two week rule, including the fact that the 100 per cent, two-week rule now includes more types of cancer.

There are also some areas where there is only one consultant, or where the consultant does not have enough support staff.

And he said that many of the cases classified as urgent were subsequently found not to be cancer while lots of non-urgent patients did have cancer.

GPs and consultants were trying to work out ways of better identifying which were urgent cases, he said.

Cancer is just one of many government-set targets hospitals have to meet. In June South Bucks Trust met two of nine.

The trust was ahead of target on cutting the number of people waiting for routine operations and for the amount of work it is doing.

But it was behind on targets for waiting to see a consultant, length of time waiting for a bed, late discharges, cancelled operations, cancer waits, workforce numbers and spending. On spending, the hospital is £1.1 million over budget.