Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to Public Health England’s most recent Radiotherapy Dataset, how many cancer patients have had their radiotherapy treatment (a) delayed, (b) modified or (c) cancelled as a result of the covid-19 outbreak; and how many patients are in the cancer treatment backlog.

The Radiotherapy Dataset does not collect data on delayed or cancelled radiotherapy treatments relating to COVID-19 or have a count of patients who may be in a cancer treatment backlog.

From the data for the week commencing 25 May 2020 the proportion of breast radiotherapy being delivered as part of a shorter course was 65% (346 episodes). This compares to less than 1% (less than two episodes on average) for each week up to the week commencing 16 March 2020, just prior to the national lockdown. Data analysing changes in treatment dose and duration are not available for any other cancer tumour types.

Data on the number of patients in the cancer treatment backlog is not available.