Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Department has taken to monitor the potential impact of changes in NHS cancer waiting time targets in Warrington North constituency; and if he will make a statement.

On 17 August 2023, NHS England announced that cancer waiting times standards would be rationalised from 1 October 2023. This followed the clinically led review of standards across the National Health Service which recommended consolidating cancer waiting times from nine standards into three. There will be a Faster Diagnosis Standard of a maximum 28-day wait for communication of a definitive cancer/not cancer diagnosis for patients referred urgently or those identified by NHS cancer screening. There will be a maximum 62-day wait to first treatment from urgent general practitioner referral, NHS cancer screening or consultant upgrade. There will be a maximum 31-day wait from decision to treat to any cancer treatment starting for all cancer patients.

These changes will allow a clearer focus on priorities and give clinicians greater flexibility to adopt new technologies such as remote image review and artificial intelligence, and avoid disincentivising modern working practices such as one-stop shops and straight-to-test.

As previously, NHS cancer waiting time targets will be published at provider and commissioner level, but not by constituency.