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NHS cancer waiting times figures, July to September 2008


  • Document type:
    Statistics
  • Author:
    Department of Health
  • Published date:
    28 November 2008
  • Gateway reference:
    none required
  • Copyright holder:
    Crown
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The latest quarterly national statistics on NHS cancer waiting times produced by the Department of Health were released on 28th November 2008 according to the arrangements approved by the UK Statistics Authority.

The key points from the latest release are:


Performance on the five standards has remained around their highest recorded levels, during the period July to September 2008, namely:

  •  99.7% of patients were seen within 2 weeks from urgent GP referral to outpatient appointment. This is a slight decrease from from 99.9% in 2008-09 Q1 and in the equivalent period last year.
  •  99.8 % of patients were treated within 1 month from diagnosis to treatment for breast cancer. This is unchanged from 2008-09 Q1 and the equivalent period last year.
  •  99.5 % of patients were treated within 2 months from urgent GP referral to treatment for breast cancer.  This is a slight decrease from 99.6% in 2008-09 Q1 and from 99.8% in the same period last year.
  •  99.6 % of patients were treated within 1 month from diagnosis to treatment for all cancers.  This is unchanged from 2008-09 Q1 and the equivalent period last year.
  •  96.9 % of patients were treated within 2 months from urgent GP referral to treatment for all cancers.  This is a slight decrease from 97.1% in 2008-09 Q1 but the same as in the equivalent period last year.

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