‘My cancer spread while I waited 128 days for an op’: The cost of England’s care gap

Radiotherapy UK analysis, shared exclusively with the BBC, suggests more than 3,000 extra patients would need to start treatment every month – a near 15% increase on current numbers – to achieve the March 2027 target.

That is likely to grow as referrals keep rising across nearly every cancer type.

Price says thousands of patients “are going to die unnecessarily, just because the government can’t get their act together to treat people on time”.

For every month a cancer patient waits before starting treatment, their chance of survival falls by around 10%.

By the time Alan had his operation, the cancer had spread to his lymph nodes and the nodule “had grown at an alarming rate”, according to the lung specialist.

He has since been told the cancer has cleared awaiting his one-year review, but the operation has left him in debilitating pain. “I used to play golf and get out and about. Now I can’t do any of the things I love,” says Alan.

Roughly 54,000 more patients will need to start treatment within 62 days before 2029 for the government to hit its goal.

One NHS trust that is gaining traction on its waiting list numbers is Salisbury, but it is still not hitting targets.

Staff say there is no single fix, just a relentless focus on getting the basics right; making sure patients know about their appointments and turn up, keeping IT systems working, recruiting the right people, making sure surgical lists are full and expanding capacity.

Much of the visible progress has come through skin and prostate cancer, two of the most common cancers in the country.