Treatment target times for cancer patients being met

Less than one in seven cancer patients started their treatment more than two months after a GP referral, with Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Clinical Commissioning Group hitting the NHS target.

In 2017, 2,343 total cancer patients were referred to hospital urgently by their doctors and 351 did not start their treatment within 62 days, according to NHS figures. That means 85 per cent were seen within two months, hitting the government’s operational target.

The target does allow for a minority of patients who choose to delay their course of treatment, which may be chemotherapy, surgery or radiation therapy.

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough CCG’s figure is roughly the same as 2016, when 84.5 per cent of patients started treatment two months after referral.

Across England most CCGs are running below the operational target. The percentage of patients starting treatment within two months nationwide has dropped from 87.1 per cent in 2012-2013 to 82.1 per cent in the first three quarters of the current financial year.

Nationally, the target has not been hit since 2013. The poorest record in England is in Thurrock CCG, Essex, where only 59 per cent of cancer patients started treatment within two months.

An NHS England spokesman said: “Cancer survival is now at its highest ever, and over the past year the NHS treated more patients within the fast-track waiting target than the year before.”