NHS likely to miss its target on cancer, warns health chief
pharmafile | May 18, 2022 | News story | Research and Development |
The NHS is likely to miss its target to return treatment waits for cancer to pre-COVID-19 levels by March 2023, according to a health leader.
Dr Liz Bishop, from NHS England’s national cancer board, was asked at the Health Service Journal Cancer Forum whether the service would be back to “business as usual” performance by next Spring. She responded with “If you mean hitting the 62-day numbers, and the 104-day numbers, by next March, then no. If I am honest, I don’t think we will.
“Do I know when that date will be? No, I don’t know.
“But what I do know is that everyone is working really hard to do it and get there.”
The national target is for at least 85% of patients to begin their first treatment for cancer within two months (62 days) of an urgent GP referral. This has not been met for years, with performance particularly declining between 2013 and 2018. Since the pandemic, this has fallen further, with 67% of patients waiting under 62 days in December 2021.
Dr Bishop, who is also the north west’s Clatterbridge Cancer Centre’s chief executive, said of her own trust’s performance: “We have all got our trajectories, so for us we’ve got a target to get down to by the end of March next year.
“We were doing really well towards the back end of last year and then Omicron set us back, which was hugely disappointing.”
Lina Adams






