Performance Standards

The national cancer waiting times standards measure the NHS performance in delivering the NHS Constitution Standards and a number of other metrics. These are considered as indicators of quality of cancer diagnosis, treatment and care delivered by NHS organisations.

There are a number of commitments and targets relating to waiting times and service standards for cancer patients to ensure high quality and timely delivery of cancer care.

A review is underway of the NHS access standards proposing a renewed focus on diagnosis as the most crucial determinant of cancer survival.

Cancer Waiting Times

There are a number of standards which measure NHS performance in the quality and timely delivery of cancer care:

NHS Cancer Waiting Time Standards Summary (July 2023)

Cancer Waiting Times: Inter-Provider Transfers

National Cancer Waiting Times Monitoring Dataset Guidance (V10.0)

pdfWest Midlands Cancer Alliance Inter Provider Transfer of Care Allocation Policy (October 2025)

From 1 October, cancer waiting time standards are being modernised and simplified, moving to three measures:

  • 28-day Faster Diagnosis Standard – diagnosis or ruling out of cancer within 28 days of referral (target 75%)
  • 31-day Treatment Standard – a first treatment within a month of decision to treat for all cancer patients (target 96%)
  • 62-day Treatment Standard – a first treatment within two months of referral or consultant upgrade (target 85%)

Faster Diagnosis is in place already and remains unchanged. Changes taking place are:

  • Removal of 2-week-wait standard
  • Combining existing 31-day first and subsequent treatment standards into one
  • Expanding 62-day standard to include patients from screening and consultant upgrade as well as those referred by GP

There is no change to how GPs refer patients onto a suspected cancer pathway. All changes will be made in the reporting of the standard. The changes will allow more focus on outcomes not processes and encourage modern cancer diagnostic practices like one-stop-shops, remote image review, and straight-to-test.

Providers must make sure that the copy in letters generated by the Electronic Referral Service (e-RS) to patients when they are referred onto urgent suspected cancer pathways are updated as necessary. The Faster Diagnosis Standard target will increase gradually to 80% by 2026.

NHS England Website: Clinically Led Review NHS Access Standards - Cancer

Peter Johnson quote card v2

Urgent Suspected Cancer Referral

This standard sets a time limit of two weeks to be seen by a specialist when referred urgently for further investigation. It measures the time from:

  • Urgent referral for suspected cancer to first outpatient attendance
  • Referral of any patient with breast symptoms (where cancer is not suspected) to first hospital assessment
  • Operational standard of 93%.

28 Days

NHS England has introduced a new target called the Faster Diagnosis Standard (FDS). The target is that you should not wait more than 28 days from referral to finding out whether you have cancer or not. 

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31 Days

A maximum of 31-days wait from the date a decision to treat (DTT) is made to the first definitive treatment for all cancers.

62 Days

There are waiting time targets to start treatment.

In England, Scotland and Northern Ireland the current targets are: 

  •  no more than 2 months (62 days) wait between the date the hospital receives an urgent suspected cancer referral and the start of treatment
  • A maximum 31 days from urgent referral to first treatment for acute leukaemia, testicular cancer and children’s cancers - monitored within the 62-day standard.

 

104 Days

  • A quality improvement standard for managing 'long waiting' cancer patients on a 62-day pathway
  • Any cancer patients waiting 104 days or more from referral to the first definitive treatment should be reviewed to identify any avoidable non-clinical delays
  • An effective process should be in place to review such patient pathways and escalation approaches for delays which may have direct clinical significance and/or have resulted in a patient coming to harm due to those delays.

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