NHS England set to miss cancer treatment target by 9,490 patients

The NHS promised to treat 80% of cancer patients within 62 days of an urgent referral or consultant upgrade by March 2027. With barely 100 days left, September's figure came in at 70.7%, down from 71.9% in August, according to NHS data. Exclusive analysis for the Guardian found the service must treat 2,850 more patients on time every month to get back on course, assuming patient numbers hold steady.

Calculations by the charity Radiotherapy UK put the scale of the gap in plain terms: 24,400 patients a month would need to start treatment in time to hit 80% by March, but only about 21,500 are. That leaves a monthly shortfall of 2,850 and a cumulative hole of 9,490 patients. Prof Pat Price, the charity's chair and a leading oncologist, said the government will miss the target because the NHS lacks the staff and equipment for the patients arriving. She added that the failure of leadership means more people could die without timely treatment.

The analysis also exposed uneven care across cancer types and geography. Prostate patients fared best at 70.1% treated within two months, followed by breast at 68.8%. Lung cancer patients came in at 60.9%, gynaecological cancers at 60%, and head and neck cancers at just 56.5%. Regionally, the Midlands recorded the lowest share treated on time at 66.6%, against 77.3% in London.

Separate Cancer Research UK analysis of diagnosis targets found only 55.4% of patients were diagnosed within 28 days of an urgent referral over the past year, far below the 80% faster diagnostic standard, while 79.1% of those given the all-clear received it on time. Naser Turabi, the charity's director of health policy and evidence, said hospital capacity has not kept pace with demand, with urgent referrals in England up about 20% in four years. He called recent investment in diagnostic equipment welcome but said progress on waiting times is too slow for the 6% of people who go on to receive a cancer diagnosis.

Mark Lawler, professor of digital health and chair in translational cancer genomics at Queen's University Belfast, pointed to failures of accountability and focus, saying the system is held together by goodwill alone and warning that without accountability and a return to basics, treatment targets will be missed for another decade. Dr Hilary Williams, clinical vice-president of the Royal College of Physicians and a consultant in medical oncology, said faster diagnosis only helps if treatment follows, calling for capacity in imaging, endoscopy, pathology, surgery, radiotherapy and systemic treatments so the bottleneck is not simply pushed further along the pathway.

Dr Stephen Harden, president of the Royal College of Radiologists, said chronic shortages of clinical radiologists and clinical oncologists are driving dangerous delays, and that NHS hiring freezes for those doctors doubled over the past year. A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said cancer waiting times are moving in the right direction, with all three cancer standards better than a year ago and around 290,000 more people diagnosed on time or having cancer ruled out over the last year compared with the year before the election. The spokesperson added that a national cancer plan will help more people get diagnosed earlier and start treatment sooner.