Full story The Guardian, 8 November 2018
The NHS is on course for its worst annual cancer waiting statistics on record, official figures suggest.
In eight out of nine published cancer targets, between April and September, the health service treated the lowest or joint lowest percentage of patients since the standards were introduced, according to official figures published on Thursday.
They show that with half the year gone, 133,843 cancer patients have not been treated within the relevant standards.
The figure amounts to 77% of the number of patients treated outside the standard in the previous 12 months, and is greater than the total in each of the first three years that all nine standards – introduced in 2012-13 – were in operation.