National Cancer Action Team

It is important that patients with suspected and diagnosed cancer have appointments, tests and treatments in a timely fashion both to improve their outcomes and their experience in the NHS.

There are a number of specific pathways that have been introduced to support timely care for cancer and suspected cancer patients. These are:

Two weeks from:

• urgent GP referral for suspected cancer to first hospital assessment
• referral for breast symptoms where cancer is not suspected to first hospital assessment;

31 days from:

• decision to treat to first treatment
• decision to treat/earliest clinically appropriate date to any subsequent treatment

62 days from:

• urgent GP referral for suspected cancer to first treatment  (31 days for suspected children’s cancers, testicular cancer, or acute leukaemia)
• urgent referral from NHS Cancer Screening Programmes (breast, cervical and bowel)
• a consultant’s decision to upgrade the urgency of a patient (due to a suspicion of cancer) to first treatment

Formal behavioural guidance on each of these cancer waits pathways can be found at: 

http://nww.connectingforhealth.nhs.uk/nhais/cancerwaiting/documentation#guidance

(NHS users only - N3 connection required)

In Addition

• NCAT has issued a guide (along with other stakeholders) to support the NHS implement the symptomatic breast two week pathway Download guide

Performance against the pathways is measured through the national Cancer Waiting Times Database (CWT-Db) and national performance is issued quarterly by the Department of Health http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Statistics/Performancedataandstatistics/HospitalWaitingTimesandListStatistics/CancerWaitingTimes/index.htm