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 help reduce waiting times for cancer treatment.
The ‘Delivery plan for tackling the COVID-19 backlog of elective care’ sets out how the National Health Service will return the number of people waiting more than 62 days to start treatment following an urgent referral due to suspected cancer to pre-pandemic levels by March 2023. We have established 91 community diagnostic centres (CDCs) to provide earlier diagnostic tests closer to home, including for cancer diagnoses.