Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps his Department has taken to reduce waiting times for NHS hospital appointments for cancer patients in (a) East Sussex and (b) Brighton and Hove.

Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust has taken several steps to reduce waiting times for cancer patients and as a result there has been a 40% reduction in the number of patients waiting greater than 104 days since January 2019, and an overall reduction in the size of the cancer waiting list. Additional funds have been secured from the Cancer Alliance, and improvement plans are in place at tumour site level.

In addition, to improve elective waiting times more broadly, local clinical commissioning groups have commissioned significantly more elective activity this year than was delivered last year to improve Referral to Treatment performance, and there is a focus on reducing the number of cancelled operations at the Trust. Additional capacity has also been secured to support a reduction in diagnostic waiting times.

Reducing waiting times continues to be a high priority for the National Health Service. Nationally, the NHS Long Term Plan sets out the NHS priorities going forward and reiterates the focus to increase the amount of planned surgery year-on-year, to cut long waits, and reduce the size of hospital waiting lists.

The Clinical Standards Review is all part of delivering the clear commitments set out in the NHS Long Term Plan to improve urgent and emergency care performance and reduce provider waiting lists over the next five years, as well as delivering the new ambitions set out, all within the final long-term funding settlement. The clinically-led review of standards is considering the appropriateness of operational standards for physical and mental health relating to planned, unplanned urgent or emergency care, as well as cancer.

Furthermore, we have committed to introducing a new 28-day faster diagnosis standard from next year so that patients are able to start treatment as quickly as possible. The new standard will see patients who are referred for investigation with suspected cancer receive a diagnosis or have cancer ruled out within 28 days. Trusts will be performance managed from April 2020.