The National Health Service (NHS) in England saw its 62-day cancer treatment rate fall to 70.7% in September, leaving it below a milestone set for March 2027.
NHS England's provisional statistics, published Nov. 12, put the rate at 71.9% in August. It measures the share of patients who start a first definitive cancer treatment within 62 days, with the period running from one of four routes: an urgent suspected-cancer referral, a breast-symptomatic referral, an urgent screening referral or a consultant upgrade. The figures follow earlier coverage of England's record cancer diagnoses and waiting-time performance.
The September rate was 9.3 percentage points below the 80% level NHS England says every trust should reach by March 2027. The planning framework calls for the 62-day standard to be maintained at 85% in 2028/29.
Radiotherapy UK estimated that reaching the March milestone will require about 24,400 timely treatment starts each month, compared with roughly 21,500 at the current pace. The charity's calculations, reported by The Guardian, put the monthly gap at 2,850 and the cumulative shortfall at 9,490 if patient volumes remain consistent.
The Guardian's analysis found different rates by cancer type: 60.9% for lung cancer, 60% for gynecological cancers and 56.5% for head and neck cancers. Its figures were 70.1% for prostate cancer and 68.8% for breast cancer.
Professor Pat Price, chair of Radiotherapy UK, told The Guardian that shortages of staff and equipment were limiting the NHS's ability to keep pace with demand. She warned that treatment delays could cost lives.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson told The Guardian that all three cancer waiting-time standards had improved from a year earlier. The spokesperson said about 290,000 more people received a timely diagnosis or an all-clear in the past year than in the year before the election, and that the national cancer plan aims to speed diagnosis and treatment. NHS England's deadline for every trust to reach 80% on the 62-day measure is March 2027.
