Successful campaigns to make people more aware of different forms of cancer are putting pressure on provision at Airedale Hospital.

Stacey Hunter, director of operations at Airedale NHS Foundation Trust, told fellow trust board members that when these awareness initiatives achieve their goal, Airedale does then have to cope with significant increases in referrals.

“There’s been a campaign about breast cancer going on, and we’ve seen an increase in referrals of over 70 per cent in the last two weeks,” she said.

“This means the campaign is doing exactly what it’s supposed to be doing, but it does pose challenges for us, as we need to make extra resources available at short notice.”