Cancer patients are having to wait longer for a diagnosis now than they did four years ago, with new analysis finding only half are receiving diagnoses within NHS England’s target of 28 days.
For people with urological cancers, such as bladder, prostate and kidney cancer, 29 per cent of urgent referrals were met on time.
Diagnosis delays have also meant that a third of patients have had to wait longer than 62 days for an urgent suspected cancer referral to start treatment, Cancer Research UK said in its report.
In the last three months of 2021, 57.3 per cent of diagnoses were given within 28 days, but this fell to 52.3 per cent by the middle of 2024.
Jon Shelton, the charity’s head of cancer intelligence, said speed was of necessity. “For those who do have cancer, the quicker we can diagnose it, the quicker we can start treatment,” he told The Independent.
“The longer we delay that process, the more it can have adverse effects for some patients. Days waiting for patients means nights of worry, and so the longer patients are waiting has an impact on them.”
From April to June 2024, more than 25,000 people had to wait more than 28 days to be diagnosed with cancer.
The report further found that between October 2021 and June 2024, 53.8 per cent of people who had cancer were diagnosed within 28 days compared with 71.7 per cent for those who had it ruled out.
The Faster Diagnosis Target (FDS) aims to diagnose or rule out cancer for 75 per cent of people within 28 days of an urgent referral.
NHS England reported improvement on this target in recent months, but this is due to more people having cancer ruled out, rather than diagnosed. The study identified that for people being diagnosed with cancer, things have actually been getting worse over time.
The NHS said it will be publishing separate figures from Thursday for the number of people who receive cancer diagnoses or have it ruled out.
Cancer Research UK has urged the government to separately report the number of people who receive diagnoses versus those who have cancer ruled out.
The wait time for some cancer types, Cancer Research UK said, is much longer than 28 days. More than half of the people diagnosed after a urological cancer referral waited more than 42 days.
Mr Shelton said: “We’re talking quite a long time period, and we know from evidence that even a small growth in the size of a tumour can lead, in some instances, to worse outcomes, and it all depends on the tumour type.”
Cancer Research UK’s chief executive, Michelle Mitchell, said: “Waiting for a cancer diagnosis can make every single day feel like forever.”
Cancer Research has called on the government to implement a ‘cancer guarantee’ to meet the waiting times by the end of this parliament and raise the FDS target to 80 per cent. The original target proposal was 95 per cent in 2015.
Ms Mitchell added: “The UK government needs to act. Its upcoming National Cancer Plan for England must include a new commitment to diagnose cancers earlier, and a pledge to meet all cancer wait time targets by the end of this parliament, including the increased FDS target.”
An NHS spokesperson said: “The NHS is seeing and treating more patients than ever before – with survival rates at an all-time high – and we know that prompt diagnosis and treatment are crucial.“That’s why we’re making our diagnostic targets more ambitious, are rolling out lung and liver scanning trucks, and introducing at-home tests to help catch more cases earlier.
”The Department of Health and Social Care will ask the NHS to meet a target of 80 per cent from March 2026.”
A DHSC spokesperson said: “We know there is more to do and we are shining a light on disparities that have gripped our health service for too long.
“The National Cancer Plan will set out how we will put the NHS back at the forefront of global cancer care, as we continue to harness the very latest innovations, to give patients the most cutting-edge care.“Our Plan for Change is already making an impact, with 148,000 more people having cancer diagnosed or ruled out within 28 days from July 2024 to June 2025 compared to a year earlier.”
