£10m to improve cancer service waiting times in Scotland

Cancer patients in Scotland are set to receive faster access to treatment as an additional £10m has been allocated to help improve waiting times.

The new money will be shared among the health boards, boosting the number of operations available, creating extra clinics and upskilling new staff to speed up the delivery of endoscopy, radiology and chemotherapy treatment.

This new investment builds on the Scottish government’s £114.5m National Cancer Plan to support patients and deliver equal access to care across the country.

This extra cash is on top of the £10 million that was allocated to Health Boards last year (2020-21) to support the running of cancer services in the face of the pandemic. This delivered new healthcare staff, additional weekend clinics and operations for the areas that need it most and helped create a brand new Urological Diagnostic Hub in NHS Highland that is already showing signs of improved waiting times.

Health Secretary Humza Yousaf said: ‘Despite the challenges of the pandemic, NHS Scotland has consistently met the 31-day standard for starting cancer treatment with an average wait of four days once a decision to treat has been made – that’s testament to the relentless efforts of our fantastic healthcare staff across the country. However we must to more to improve our 62-day performance.

‘Covid has not gone away and pressures remain, which is why we are providing health boards with a £10 million cash boost to drive down waiting times so that cancer patients can receive the best care as early as possible.’

There are two waiting time standards for cancer in Scotland. The 62-day standard is the time taken from receipt of urgent suspicion of cancer (USC) referral to start of first treatment for newly diagnosed primary cancers.

Patients can be urgently referred by a primary care clinician or general dental physician;  referred through a national cancer screening programme; direct referral to hospital where the signs and symptoms are consistent with the cancer diagnosed in line with the Scottish Referral Guidelines for example self-referral to A&E.

The 31-day standard is from the decision to treat to start of first treatment for newly diagnosed primary cancers, regardless of route of referral.