Breast Cancer: Health Services
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of NHS capacity to deliver timely breast cancer treatment for patients diagnosed through the NHS Breast Screening Programme; and whether any assessment has been made of the potential impact of proposals to expand breast screening eligibility on waiting times for diagnosis and treatment where breast cancer operations have been postponed or cancelled.
Answered by Mrs Sharon Hodgson
The latest available data, May 2026, showed 78.1% of suspected breast cancer referrals which were identified through the national screening programme in England were diagnosed within 28 days. The National Cancer Plan sets a clear ambition to meet all cancer waiting time standards by the end of this Parliament, ensuring patients get faster diagnosis and treatment, including those with breast cancer. We will achieve this through a modernised, more productive cancer pathway, expanding diagnostic capacity, harnessing technology, and giving the most challenged trusts intensive support to deliver the improvements patients rightly expect. Which indicates that the capacity of the system to provide timely patient diagnosis from screening is adequate.
The UK National Screening Committee (UK NSC) makes recommendations regarding all screening programmes. Although there is a working group considering breast screening risk stratification, the committee have not made any recent recommendations regarding the expansion of the breast screening programme. Therefore, no assessment of impact on waiting times for diagnosis or treatment has been undertaken. If such a recommendation was made, the feasibility of implementation, in relation to capacity and impact on treatment times, would be considered as part of the advice that went to ministers before the Ministers made a decision on whether to accept the UK NSC advice.
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