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 improve NHS waiting times for cancer patients.

The NHS Long Term Plan sets out plans to improve early cancer diagnosis, and a new ambition that, by 2028, the proportion of cancers diagnosed at stages one and two will rise from around half to three-quarters of cancer patients. This will be achieved through raising greater awareness of symptoms of cancer, accelerating access to diagnosis and treatment, maximising the number of cancers that are identified through screening, and harnessing new innovations in technology. A radical overhaul of the way diagnostic services are delivered will ensure that people can get their diagnosis more quickly, including the roll-out of new Rapid Diagnostic Centres across the country to upgrade and bring together the latest diagnostic equipment and expertise.

The independent cancer taskforce recommended the introduction of a new faster diagnosis standard to ensure that people receive a life changing confirmation of whether or not they have cancer within 28 days. This proposed new standard is being considered as part of the clinical review of National Health Service access standards currently being undertaken by NHS England.