NHS cancer targets ‘are being met’

Professor Mike Richards, the government’s national cancer director, has said the service provided by the NHS for cancer patients was largely meeting targets.

Speaking on ITV’s Evening News programme, Mr Richards claimed that patients were now being “referred urgently” by their GPs.

He said: “We know that they will get through the system, so they will be seen, they will get all their tests and get the treatment within two months in 95 per cent of all cases.”

However, Sue Green, senior cancer information nurse for Cancerbackup, the cancer charity, said more could still be done.

She told the same programme: “We know from calls that we get to the service that people are still having to wait.”

Recent statistics from both Scottish and English health authorities have shown that mortality rates from cancer are falling.

Cancer mortality rates have fallen by 15.7 per cent over the last ten years, according to the Department of Health.