Trust deciding whether to widen breast cancer probe
GettyAn NHS trust is still deciding whether to expand the scope of its review into the care of its former breast cancer patients.
A report last year into County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust found unnecessary surgeries were carried out, cancers were missed and poor standards of care were delivered within its breast cancer care services.
It is currently reviewing about 1,500 cases from between January 2023 and February 2025. The trust's chief medical officer Dr Eliot Sykes said the trust was still deciding whether to look at even older cases as part of the review.
He said the trust was talking to patients and its partners and a decision was likely to be made in September.
The trust said the potential for the review to go back earlier than 2023 had always been part of the plan.
It said no new information had been unearthed to affect its decision on the matter.
An independent review into the trust's breast surgery services in November 2025 found "weaknesses in leadership, clinical governance, organisational culture and contract management over many years".
Sykes said it was not clear how long the review would take if the trust did decide to look at even older cases.
The trust currently has a team of nine reviewers going through the documents and said it hoped to have added another to the team in September.
