TWO of Oxford’s top oncologists have warned of dire consequences for cancer patients if junior doctors are forced to work seven days a week.

Controversial government reforms would drag them away from clinics treating the sickest people, they say.

Speaking ahead of tomorrow’s 48-hour strike by junior doctors, consultant oncologist Professor Adrian Harris warned a “hidden timebomb” could mean those battling cancer will find it harder to adapt to their treatments.

His colleague Dr Shivan Sivakumar said: “The end result would be a decline in their status and eventually death.”

Professor Harris, Cancer Research UK professor of medical oncology at Oxford University, said waiting lists for cancer, respiratory, cardiology and surgical clinics could increase if there were fewer junior doctors to help run them.

He added: “If they make junior doctors work more at the weekends with no increase in staff and we are struggling with the five-day health service, who’s going to help run the clinics?

“If you shift them over to have more junior doctors at weekends there’s going to be a massive knock-on effect on how we deliver services for the rest of the week.

“It’s a hidden timebomb. How are patients going to be seen?

“There would automatically be an increase in waiting times for outpatients.”

Professor Harris runs a breast cancer clinic at the county’s hospitals with the support of three junior doctors.

Dr Sivakumar stressed there are currently not enough doctors to meet the existing need for specialist clinics.

The medical oncology registrar warned if doctors are working more weekends, cancer patients requiring urgent diagnoses and treatment could be left waiting.

He added: “These are some of the sickest patients who need the most care in terms of getting their diagnosis and managing their cancer.

“If we spread people more thinly I don’t understand how we will run specialist clinics.”

The most recent figures showed 87.5 per cent of cancer patients in Oxfordshire were treated within 62 days of an urgent GP referral – just above the government’s target of 85 per cent.

Cancer campaigner Kelley Spacey from Rose Hill said any impact on waiting times would be worrying.

The 43-year-old lost her mother, Janet Priest, to pancreatic cancer in August 2011 when she was just 63.

Mrs Spacey said: “You need to be diagnosed early and then treated early to have any chance of survival.

“If you do not the cancer can grow and spread.

“The only way you can do that is if they have the doctors and staff available.

“The NHS has a hard enough time as it is. The doctors are stuck with what they can do with the staff they have got.”

Thousands of junior doctors across the country – including around 2,000 in the Thames Valley – have taken to the picket lines three times since the row broke out last year.

Following tomorrow’s strike from 8am another is planned for April 26 and April 27 when junior doctors would refuse to cover emergency treatment for the first time in NHS history

Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the John Radcliffe, Churchill, Horton General and Nuffield Orthopaedic hospitals declined to comment on Professor Harris’s comments.

Trust director of clinical services Paul Brennan said: “We are working closely with all of our staff to ensure that services continue to be safe during the planned 48-hour industrial action on April 6 and 8.

“All urgent and emergency provision, including maternity, oncology, renal dialysis, trauma and other urgent services, will continue as usual.

“While we are continuing to provide elective services some cases will need to be rescheduled. Where this is necessary all patients affected will be contacted and offered an alternative appointment.”