Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that 85 per cent of breast cancer patients start treatment within 62 days of urgent referral.

Cancer patients are waiting too long for diagnosis and treatment, and improving performance against cancer waiting time standards, including the 62-day standard, is a priority for the Government.

It is a priority for the Government to support the National Health Service to diagnose cancer, including breast cancer, as early and quickly as possible, and to treat it faster, to improve outcomes for patients across England. The Department is committed to improving waiting times for cancer treatment so that people with cancer can access the care they need more quickly.

We are committed to transforming diagnostic services and will support the NHS to increase capacity to meet demand through investment in new diagnostic capacity, including magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography scanners. As a first step towards earlier diagnosis and faster treatment, the NHS is now delivering an extra 40,000 operations, scans and appointments each week.

In May 2025, NHS England announced the world’s first roll out of liquid biopsy testing, which is now available for all eligible breast cancer patients, and which aims to speed up diagnosis and inform better treatment options for those with breast cancer.

£70 million has been invested into new LINAC radiotherapy machines, to replace older, less efficient machines. This vital investment demonstrates our commitment to improving radiotherapy services, and will ensure that the most advanced treatments are available to patients who need it and will boost productivity, reducing waiting lists and ultimately improving outcomes.

The upcoming National Cancer Plan will include further details on how we will improve outcomes for cancer patients, as well as speeding up diagnosis and treatment. It will ensure that patients have access to the latest treatments and technology and bring cancer care back into communities which need it the most. The plan will be published early this year.