Urgent Direct Access to Diagnostic Services for General Practitioners: Bridging the Gap in Cancer Diagnosis.

Urgent direct access to diagnostic services for general practitioners (GPs) is a new pathway to capture any cancer diagnoses that may have been missed due to vague symptom presentations. Hence, GPs should look out for the key symptoms mentioned by NHS England that should prompt urgent direct access referrals for chest X-ray (CXR), computed tomography (CT) chest, MRI brain, ultrasound (US) abdomen and pelvis, and CT abdomen and pelvis. By implementing this approach, we can significantly reduce the time to diagnosis, while minimizing the number of visits to GP and specialist appointments prior to initiating investigations.

A preoperative supervised exercise program potentially improves long-term survival after elective abdominal aortic aneurysm repair.

Objective: A preoperative supervised exercise program (SEP) improves cardiorespiratory fitness and perioperative outcomes for patients undergoing elective abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) repair. The aim of this study was to assess the effect of a preoperative SEP on long-term survival of these patients. A secondary aim was to consider long-term changes in cardiorespiratory fitness and quality of life.