Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to help improve waiting times for radiotherapy treatment.

The Department does not hold data on how many and what proportion of radiotherapy machines are beyond their recommended working life in each integrated care board and hospital. From April 2022, the responsibility for investing in new radiotherapy machines sits with local systems.

Cancer patients are waiting too long for treatment. We will get the National Health Service diagnosing cancer on time and treating it faster, so that more patients survive this horrible set of diseases, and we will improve patients’ experience across the system. We will address the challenges in diagnostic waiting times, providing the number of computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and other tests that are needed to reduce elective and cancer waits.