Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many patients in England (a) are awaiting cancer treatment and (b) have been waiting longer than the (i) 31 and (ii) 62 day targets.

Cancer treatment waiting list data is not published, however, we can provide the latest published 62-day cancer backlog figure, which was 15,102 for the week ending 1 March 2026. The 62-day backlog is the number of patients waiting on the 62-day pathway following an urgent suspected cancer referral. These figures include patients who will not have cancer and are waiting for this to be ruled out as well as those who are waiting for initial treatment following diagnosis of cancer.

For the latest published month of cancer wating time statistics, from February 2026, 3,878 patients were breaching the 31-day treatment standard, and 8,500 patients were breaching the 62-day standard. These patients received a treatment after 31 and 62 days respectively.