When the half-way groups with either insurance or a USC were compared with the reference group (Yes INS/Yes USC), those with only insurance but no USC did not have significantly different odds of experiencing an unmet medical need, unmet dental care need, unmet prescription needs, or problems with specialty referral and delayed urgent care.
Various components of delays (patient and primary care delays, referral delays, secondary delays, and total delays) were calculated from answers to questions about their cancer journey.
We collected referral source and delay between onset of the headache and HC diagnosis.
We prospectively gathered demographic and nosological characteristics and considered referral source and delay between onset of headache and diagnosis of HC.
This resulted in multiple referrals and delayed care for users requiring emergency services due to delayed transportation from one FRU to another.
Although the goal is as many direct referrals from PHC to QDU as possible, avoiding intermediate ED referrals and delays, these referral decisions may lead to unnecessary QDU overcrowding.
Diagnostic delays (perhaps better referred to as 'time to diagnosis' since there is not always a 'delay') may occur at any point in the cancer journey and can be divided into: pre-symptomatic delays, patient delays, primary care delays, referral delays, and secondary care delays [ 2, 3].
Compared with patient and primary care delays, referral delays and secondary care delays were much shorter.
These delays were considerably shorter than referral and prehospital delays.
Our figures for lung cancer compare favourably with the literature, with total delays, referral delays and secondary care delays all being shorter.
