Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to ensure NHS trusts consistently meet the 62 day target for starting cancer treatment.

As set out in the new plan for reforming elective care, the Government is committed to improving performance on cancer waiting times. The National Health Service’s annual operational planning guidance set out a national commitment to improve waiting times, including improving performance against the 62-day cancer standard to 75% by March 2026.

The Department is committed to improving waiting times for cancer treatment across England by delivering an extra 40,000 operations, scans, and appointments each week, as the first step to ensuring early diagnosis and faster treatment; we have exceeded our pledge to deliver an extra two million operations, scans, and appointments, having now delivered over three million more appointments. £70 million will also be spent on replacing out-of-date radiotherapy equipment so that cancer patients benefit from faster and safer cancer treatment using the most up-to-date technology. Replacing these older machines will save as many as 13,000 appointments from being lost to equipment breakdown.

Additionally, providers have also been asked to identify local opportunities in both community diagnostic centres and hospital based diagnostic services to improve performance against the faster diagnosis standard, to reduce the number of patients waiting too long for a confirmed diagnosis of cancer and start treatment.

The National Cancer Plan will include further details on how we will improve outcomes for cancer patients, as well as speeding up diagnosis and treatment.