Leukaemia: Diagnosis
(asked on 2nd January 2026) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department will commit to publishing regular data on leukaemia diagnosis delays and outcomes.
The National Disease Registration Service collects information on how many people in England are diagnosed with or treated for cancer. Blood cancer is included as a distinct category, labelled haematological neoplasms, with further information avaiable at the following link:
https://nhsd-ndrs.shinyapps.io/incidence_and_mortality/
This creates a clinically rich data resource that is used to measure diagnosis, treatment, and outcomes for patients diagnosed with cancer.
The 28-day faster diagnosis standard is a performance standard that aims to have a patient diagnosed with or have cancer ruled out within 28-days from referral. This performance metric monitors diagnostic performance and delays in diagnosis across cancer types, including leukaemia. It is published monthly and can be found at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/cancer-waiting-times/
Data is collected on cancer survival, with the most recent dataset being published in February 2023, which provides survival data from 2016 to 2020, followed up to 2021. The next publication will be released soon and will provide data on cancer survival diagnosed from 2018 to 2022 followed up to 2023. The survival datasets can be found at the following link: