NHS Cancer Waiting Times Crisis Deepens as Only Three Trusts Meet Key Target
New analysis of NHS data has revealed a deepening crisis in cancer care across England, with just three hospital trusts managing to hit the crucial 85% waiting time target for treatment initiation. The figures show widespread failures across the health service, with some of the worst-performing trusts seeing only around half of their patients within the recommended timeframe.
National Targets Consistently Missed
The NHS has maintained a long-standing commitment that 85% of cancer patients should begin treatment within 62 days of receiving an urgent referral. However, this critical benchmark has not been achieved at a national level since 2014, highlighting systemic challenges in cancer care delivery. The government has established an interim target of reaching 75% compliance by March 2026, but current performance remains significantly below even this reduced expectation.
Analysis of NHS England data for 2025 shows that only three out of 119 acute trusts with comparable statistics managed to meet or exceed the 85% target. Approximately one quarter of trusts achieved rates above 75%, while the majority fell short of even this interim goal. Across England as a whole, 69.1% of patients began cancer treatment within 62 days last year, representing a slight improvement from 67.7% in 2024 but remaining substantially below the established standard.
Performance Variation Across Trusts
The three trusts that successfully met the 85% target in 2025 were Calderdale and Huddersfield (89.2% of patients), Homerton Healthcare (85.8%), and Maidstone & Tunbridge Wells (85.7%). Calderdale and Huddersfield maintained its position as the top performer for the second consecutive year.
In stark contrast, the bottom five performing trusts demonstrated alarming statistics: Mid & South Essex treated just 45.4% of patients within 62 days, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals managed 50.1%, Hull University Teaching Hospitals achieved 53.1%, Queen Elizabeth Hospital King's Lynn reached 54.2%, and Guy's & St Thomas' in London recorded 55.1% compliance.
Michelle Mitchell, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, emphasized the gravity of the situation: "Every cancer patient deserves access to timely, high-quality care. Although NHS staff are working hard to cope with increasing pressure on cancer services, far too many people still face unacceptable delays for vital treatment."
Extreme Delays and International Comparisons
Further analysis reveals that in several trusts, a significant proportion of patients experienced extreme waiting times exceeding 104 days. At University Hospitals of Leicester, 13.7% of patients starting treatment in December 2025 had waited this long, while Queen Elizabeth Hospital King's Lynn recorded 14.5%, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals 14.9%, and Guy's and St Thomas' 15.5%. The most severe cases occurred at Hull University Teaching Hospitals (16.5%) and Mid and South Essex (17.0%), where approximately one in six patients endured these extended delays.
Bea Taylor, fellow at the Nuffield Trust think tank, contextualized the challenges: "The UK lags behind other countries in cancer outcomes and faces longstanding gaps in investment and staff, with key equipment like diagnostic scanners in short supply compared to countries like Germany, Sweden and Italy. These factors also made it more difficult for the NHS to recover cancer care post-pandemic."
Trust Responses and Improvement Plans
NHS leadership acknowledged the ongoing challenges while highlighting recent initiatives. An NHS spokesman stated: "The NHS is seeing and treating record numbers of patients for cancer, with more than three quarters of people receiving a diagnosis or all clear within four weeks, but there are still too many people experiencing unacceptably long waits for their first treatment. Our landmark National Cancer Plan sets out a clear roadmap to ensuring we are meeting all three cancer standards to see and treat patients on time over the next three years."
Individual trusts have implemented various strategies to address performance gaps. Kirsten Major, chief executive of Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, explained: "We previously had some of the best cancer waiting times, so we are concerned about the drop in performance and the impact on our patients. This is one of our top three priorities and as such, we have already taken actions to turn this around, including additional clinics and diagnostic capacity and changes to improve and speed up the care that we provide."
Similarly, Dawn Scrafield, chief executive of Mid & South Essex NHS Foundation Trust, outlined their approach: "Improving cancer care is one of our key priorities – we know we need to do more and that our patients deserve better. We have invested in new technologies to help us treat cancer more quickly, and have also increased the provision of diagnostic tests, outpatient clinics and cancer surgery to reduce the time to diagnosis and treatment."
Future Challenges and Technological Solutions
The analysis indicates that 65 of the 119 trusts experienced year-on-year improvements in the percentage of patients seen within 62 days, while 54 trusts saw declines. This fluctuation underscores the difficulty in maintaining consistent progress across the health system.
Bea Taylor from the Nuffield Trust emphasized the need for sustained momentum: "The NHS often struggles to sustain progress on improving cancer waiting times, but there isn't time for stagnation as trusts work towards the 85% target. For this to be achieved there is still a considerable gap to close, and the NHS will need to keep up momentum and build on it, instead of fluctuating throughout the year."
She also highlighted potential technological solutions: "Taking advantage of new developments in digital technology could help, for example, by using AI to speed up diagnosis for patients, but making the UK 'world-leading' on cancer will take time and the commitment of scarce resources in a health service already under pressure."
With the government's commitment to meet all cancer waiting times targets in England by 2029, significant investment in NHS workforce and equipment will be essential to deliver meaningful improvements for patients nationwide.
