Pathologists warn of five-week wait for cancer diagnosis

Specialists who diagnose cancer say patients are waiting about five weeks to find out whether they have it. The Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia says that is unacceptable, and that the wait is growing as the government expands screening and sends more samples to laboratories.

The recommended time is 48 hours for an urgent sample and five days for a non-urgent one. The college's New Zealand vice-president, Associate Professor Diane Kenwright, told RNZ's Checkpoint that routine cases are now waiting around five weeks. The college backs the screening expansion. Its argument is that the system has funded the front door and not the people who read what comes through it.

The record

The government has expanded screening for some cancers, including bowel cancer. More people being screened means more samples, and every biopsy has to be examined by a pathologist before a diagnosis can be made.

Kenwright says the college wrote to the health minister before this year's Budget. It asked for $3.7 million to train 23 pathologists and close the staffing gap. She says the Budget contained no funding for that goal.

Her description of the pressure is blunt. "Pathology services are right on the knife edge," she said. "We are working so hard every day, but still can't get through the work that's sent to us."

Put the numbers side by side. The benchmark for a routine sample is five days, and the reported wait is five weeks. That is roughly seven times the recommended time. Whatever the exact figure in any one laboratory, the college says the gap between the standard and the reality is wide.

Open questions

The central worry is about sorting, not just speed. "My fear is that a cancer will be in the routine pile rather than the urgent pile," Kenwright said. On her account, a cancer in the routine pile means five more weeks before surgery and five more weeks before chemotherapy can begin. She says delays like this could lead to adverse outcomes for patients. Those are her warnings, and the college has not said how many patients, if any, have been affected.

There is also a design question for the screening programme. If expanding screening reliably raises sample volumes, when was the pathology workforce needed to handle that built into the plan? Training a pathologist takes years, so funding decisions made now affect capacity well after the next election on 7 November 2026.

And what would the $3.7 million actually deliver, and how quickly? The college says it would train 23 pathologists. Ministers and Health New Zealand will be asked whether that figure is the right one, and if not, what is.

The other side

Health Minister Simeon Brown did not dispute that screening changes create more demand. He said he recognised they will lead to more work, and that Health New Zealand was working to understand the impact and confirm funding.

He said a plan for how pathology services are resourced is being developed, and that the College of Pathologists will be invited to contribute. He also said Health NZ is in discussions with the college about training and funding needs, and that he expects the agency to keep working closely with the sector so patients get their results as quickly as possible.

The strongest fair reading of that response is that a workforce plan built with the profession may be better than a single Budget line. Funding for training is more likely to work if it is tied to a wider assessment of demand. The minister has not, in the material available, committed to a figure or a date, and the college's case is that the queue is growing while the plan is written.

What happens next

Watch for the pathology resourcing plan the minister says is being developed. The key details will be whether the college is brought in early, whether it includes dedicated training funding, and when any money would flow.

Health NZ's funding confirmation for the expanded screening programmes is the second marker. If more samples are coming, the test is whether laboratories are resourced to read them.

For patients, the immediate issue is triage. Doctors will be relied on to flag urgent cases so they do not sit in the routine pile. Whether that holds under pressure is the question the college is raising, and the public will want a clear answer on how waiting times are being measured and reported.