Cancer: Radiotherapy
(asked on 24th June 2026) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy radiotherapy capacity to meet the Government’s target of returning cancer waiting times to the 62-day standard by March 2029.
In December 2024, NHS England wrote to all radiotherapy treatment providers inviting them to apply for funding to replace ageing radiotherapy machines. Funding was then allocated to trusts using criteria that NHS England developed. These criteria focused on the age of the machine being replaced, the proportion of older machines in use within the trust, and the trust’s performance on radiotherapy.
The Government announced the allocation of new radiotherapy linear accelerator, or LINAC, machines on 26 May 2025, and within this, a breakdown of trust allocation was given and can be found at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/faster-cancer-treatment-thanks-to-new-radiotherapy-machines
The following table shows allocations by National Health Service region:
Region | Total value |
East of England | £7,507,000 |
North East and Yorkshire | £7,586,000 |
Midlands | £12,406,000 |
London | £14,993,000 |
S West | £10,502,000 |
S East | £10,015,000 |
N West | £6,595,000 |
The Department knows that there is a long way to go to improve waiting times for radiotherapy treatment, and that there is significant regional variation in performance. The National Cancer Plan has set out how we intend to tackle these issues, reduce backlogs and provide an NHS that there is when people need it.