‘Horrific’ cancer wait times revealed
New research commissioned by the Liberal Democrats from the House of Commons Library has shown huge disparities in cancer care across England revealing a horrific crisis right across the country. This winter, from November 2021 to February 2022 almost 195,000 patients waited longer than two weeks to see a consultant after an urgent cancer referral from their GP. The NHS target is for 93% of patients to be seen within this time but across England nearly a quarter of people don’t see a consultant for that urgent appointment. Similarly in the same time period only 1 in 7 of people received a cancer diagnosis after 28 days from an urgent referral by their GP and almost 40,000 patients waited longer than 2 months (62 days) to start treatment from their…