Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to meet the Government's objective of ensuring that the number of people waiting more than 62 days to start treatment following suspected cancer will return to pre-pandemic levels by March 2023.

The Department is taking steps with NHS England to support local systems to address the waiting list for cancer services. November 2022 saw the highest number of urgent general practitioner referrals for cancer with nearly 265,000 patients referred compared to the pandemic low of 80,000 in April 2020.

Cancer treatment is also at record levels. The National Health Service has treated a record number of people for cancer in the last year with over 321,000 people receiving their first cancer treatment over the last year, between December 2021 to November 2022.

To support elective recovery the government plans to spend more than £8 billion from 2022/23 to 2024/25. NHS England has also developed an intervention model through which challenged trusts are receiving additional national and or regional support to maximise and expand their cancer diagnostic and treatment capacity.