Cancer patients waiting over 104 days for treatment as NHS trusts fail to meet crucial target

Nearly all NHS trusts across England are failing to meet a crucial cancer treatment target, with some of the poorest performing trusts only managing to treat around half of their patients within the stipulated timeframe.

New data reveals significant disparities between trusts, with some individuals enduring waits exceeding 104 days.

The long-established NHS benchmark mandates that 85 per cent of cancer patients should commence treatment within 62 days of their referral. However, this national target has not been achieved since 2014. In response to the ongoing challenges, the government has set an interim goal for this figure to reach 75 per cent by March 2026.

The new analysis of NHS England figures shows just three of 119 acute trusts with comparable data hit or surpassed the 85% target last year, while only around a quarter made it above 75%.

The three managing to meet the 85% target in 2025 were Calderdale and Huddersfield (89.2% of patients), Homerton Healthcare (85.8%) and Maidstone & Tunbridge Wells (85.7%).

The bottom five performing trusts were Mid & South Essex (seeing just 45.4% of patients within 62 days), Sheffield Teaching Hospitals (50.1%), Hull University Teaching Hospitals (53.1%), Queen Elizabeth Hospital King’s Lynn (54.2%) and Guy’s & St Thomas’ in London (55.1%).

Across England as a whole, 69.1% of patients (239,038 out of 345,847) began cancer treatment within 62 days last year, up slightly from 67.7% (221,380 out of 327,221) in 2024, but well below the target.

Some 65 of the 119 trusts saw a rise year on year in the percentage of patients seen within 62 days, while 54 saw a fall.

Four trusts made it above 85% in 2024 compared with three in 2025, with Calderdale and Huddersfield topping the list in both years.

Michelle Mitchell, chief executive of Cancer Research UK, told PA: “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.

“The UK Government has set an important commitment to meet all cancer waiting times targets in England by 2029, but this can’t be achieved at the current rate of progress.

“More investment in NHS workforce and equipment will be crucial to deliver genuine change for patients across the country.”

Press Association analysis also shows that in a handful of trusts, at least one in seven patients who began cancer treatment in December 2025 had been waiting more than 104 days since an urgent referral.

At University Hospitals of Leicester, 13.7% of patients starting treatment in December had waited this long, as well as 14.5% of patients at Queen Elizabeth Hospital King’s Lynn, 14.9% at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals and 15.5% at Guy’s and St Thomas’.

The proportion was as high as one in six patients at Hull University Teaching Hospitals (16.5%) and Mid and South Essex (17.0%).

Here is a full list showing the percentage of patients in 2025 who began their first treatment for cancer within 62 days of an urgent referral, broken down by NHS trust.

The figures cover 119 acute NHS trusts in England that had comparable data for both 2024 and 2025.

In around a quarter of trusts in 2025 (33 of 119), at least 75% of patients began cancer treatment within 62 days of an urgent referral.

This is up slightly from 29 trusts out of 119 in 2024.

At nine in 10 trusts in 2025 (107 of 119), at least 60% of patients began treatment within 62 days – a slight improvement on 2024, when 104 of 119 trusts were above 60%.

Only one trust was below 50% in 2025 – Mid & South Essex, on 45.4% – while two were under 50% in 2024: Guy’s & St Thomas’ (47.7%) and Mid & South Essex (47.0%).

The list reads, from left to right: name of NHS trust; percentage of patients in 2025 who began their first treatment for cancer within 62 days of an urgent referral; percentage (in brackets) in 2024 who began their first treatment within 62 days.

Calderdale & Huddersfield 89.2% (89.4%)

Homerton Healthcare 85.8% (79.7%)

Maidstone & Tunbridge Wells 85.7% (85.4%)

East & North Hertfordshire 84.95% (85.2%)

Ashford & St Peter’s Hospitals 83.6% (83.4%)

Bolton 83.4% (83.4%)

Epsom & St Helier University Hospitals 83.2% (86.6%)

Royal Cornwall Hospitals 83.2% (83.5%)

London North West University Healthcare 82.5% (77.9%)

Northumbria Healthcare 81.5% (79.1%)

Kingston & Richmond 80.7% (80.9%)

Harrogate & District 80.1% (78.4%)

Mersey & West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals 79.8% (78.9%)

Tameside & Glossop Integrated Care 79.7% (74.5%)

Whittington Health 79.3% (65.6%)

Warrington & Halton Teaching Hospitals 79.3% (78.9%)

Chelsea & Westminster Hospital 79.1% (84.6%)

Royal Surrey County Hospital 79.0% (78.8%)

Airedale 79.0% (84.0%)

West Hertfordshire Teaching Hospitals 78.9% (73.9%)

Walsall Healthcare 78.4% (78.1%)

West Suffolk 78.3% (78.1%)

Surrey & Sussex 78.1% (73.7%)

Mid Yorkshire 77.8% (67.2%)

Frimley Health 76.8% (71.1%)

The Dudley Group 76.5% (71.3%)

Countess of Chester Hospital 76.1% (78.7%)

University Hospitals Bristol & Weston 76.1% (74.9%)

St George’s University Hospitals 75.9% (78.8%)

University College London Hospitals 75.7% (74.0%)

University Hospital Southampton 75.6% (78.4%)

Royal Devon University Healthcare 75.5% (69.7%)

Wirral University Teaching Hospital 75.02% (76.1%)

Queen Victoria Hospital 74.99% (77.8%)

Barts Health 74.8% (64.1%)

South Tyneside & Sunderland 74.3% (74.5%)

Wye Valley 74.2% (68.8%)

Barnsley Hospital 74.1% (74.6%)

East Sussex Healthcare 73.8% (68.2%)

Croydon Health Services 73.8% (78.7%)

Gloucestershire Hospitals 73.8% (66.7%)

Gateshead Health 73.7% (74.3%)

Barking, Havering & Redbridge University Hospitals 73.5% (72.5%)

East Lancashire Hospitals 73.5% (70.6%)

Royal Berkshire 73.4% (73.5%)

East Kent Hospitals University 73.1% (67.5%)

Rotherham 73.0% (76.9%)

Stockport 73.0% (70.9%)

Northern Care Alliance 72.8% (66.9%)

Bradford Teaching Hospitals 72.6% (69.8%)

Wrightington, Wigan & Leigh 72.4% (76.3%)

Portsmouth Hospitals University 72.4% (72.4%)

Liverpool University Hospitals 72.3% (70.2%)

County Durham & Darlington 72.2% (73.5%)

Cambridge University Hospitals 72.0% (73.0%)

North West Anglia 71.9% (63.7%)

Imperial College Healthcare 71.8% (73.2%)

University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay 71.5% (76.3%)

Sandwell & West Birmingham Hospitals 71.3% (69.8%)

Doncaster & Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals 71.3% (75.04%)

Great Western Hospitals 71.0% (69.2%)

Dorset County Hospital 70.8% (74.5%)

Somerset 70.7% (68.4%)

Chesterfield Royal Hospital 70.2% (74.3%)

Hampshire Hospitals 70.0% (71.8%)

Bedfordshire Hospitals 69.9% (65.8%)

University Hospitals Dorset 69.7% (68.0%)

Royal Wolverhampton 69.2% (54.4%)

Kettering General Hospital 69.1% (67.0%)

East Cheshire 69.0% (71.3%)

Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals 69.0% (61.1%)

Hillingdon Hospitals 68.9% (67.8%)

Torbay & South Devon 68.6% (71.8%)

Medway 68.5% (70.9%)

James Paget University Hospitals 68.5% (65.2%)

East Suffolk & North Essex 68.2% (73.4%)

Isle of Wight 67.6% (62.6%)

Royal United Hospitals Bath 67.3% (69.1%)

University Hospitals of Derby & Burton 67.2% (65.8%)

Mid Cheshire Hospitals 66.6% (68.9%)

Royal Free London 66.4% (54.8%)

York & Scarborough Teaching Hospitals 66.2% (69.3%)

Lewisham & Greenwich 66.1% (65.5%)

Salisbury 66.0% (71.0%)

University Hospitals Coventry & Warwickshire 65.9% (57.4%)

Milton Keynes University Hospital 65.6% (65.6%)

South Tees Hospitals 65.6% (60.8%)

United Lincolnshire Teaching Hospitals 65.3% (63.9%)

North Bristol 64.7% (62.7%)

University Hospitals of North Midlands 64.7% (64.8%)

Sherwood Forest Hospitals 64.7% (64.7%)

Northampton General Hospital 64.5% (67.4%)

Dartford & Gravesham 64.4% (71.9%)

Shrewsbury & Telford Hospital 64.4% (56.7%)

King’s College Hospital 64.3% (67.4%)

Manchester University 63.7% (56.1%)

George Eliot Hospital 63.6% (63.2%)

University Hospitals Plymouth 63.0% (66.9%)

Leeds Teaching Hospitals 62.9% (60.8%)

Blackpool Teaching Hospitals 62.8% (67.4%)

University Hospitals Sussex 62.7% (58.6%)

Buckinghamshire Healthcare 62.5% (61.6%)

Nottingham University Hospitals 61.5% (61.5%)

Worcestershire Acute Hospitals 61.3% (63.2%)

Lancashire Teaching Hospitals 61.1% (62.2%)

North Tees & Hartlepool 60.8% (67.2%)

Northern Lincolnshire & Goole 60.1% (56.3%)

University Hospitals Birmingham 59.9% (53.3%)

North Cumbria Integrated Care 59.6% (66.0%)

Oxford University Hospitals 59.6% (62.6%)

South Warwickshire 59.5% (63.4%)

Norfolk & Norwich University Hospitals 57.6% (52.1%)

Princess Alexandra Hospital 57.1% (52.5%)

University Hospitals Of Leicester 55.4% (57.3%)

Guy’s & St Thomas’ 55.1% (47.7%)

Queen Elizabeth Hospital, King’s Lynn 54.2% (61.3%)

Hull University Teaching Hospitals 53.1% (54.8%)

Sheffield Teaching Hospitals 50.1% (50.7%)

Mid & South Essex 45.4% (47.0%)

Bea Taylor, fellow at the Nuffield Trust think tank, said 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 said.

“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.

“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.”

An NHS spokesman said: “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, with further improvements to make care more personalised and significantly improve survival.”

Kirsten Major, chief executive of Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, said: “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.”

She said the trust is “now seeing a consistent improvement in cancer waiting times each month”.

A spokesman for NHS Humber Health Partnership, representing Hull University Teaching Hospitals, said: “Our clinicians are driving forward an improvement plan to ensure patients can be diagnosed more quickly and begin their treatment as soon as possible.

“This plan involves a whole raft of measures changing how we work and how services are provided, from increasing diagnostics, theatres and clinics capacity.”

Dawn Scrafield, chief executive of Mid & South Essex NHS Foundation Trust, said: “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.

“We can already see our waiting times reducing in some cancers as we deliver extra clinics and improve theatre scheduling.”

A spokeswoman for Guy’s & St Thomas’ said “improving how quickly people can access our services is a key priority for the trust”, adding: “While we have made progress in the past year, we recognise that further improvement is required and we are ambitious about how quickly we can do this.”