Cancer treatment waits worse than previously reported as Macmillan demands action
Fewer than one in three cancer patients in Northern Ireland began treatment within the recommended 62 days following an urgent GP referral in the first three months of 2026, newly corrected figures have revealed.
The revised Department of Health data shows just 29.6% of patients started their first definitive cancer treatment within 62 days between January and March — against the official target of at least 95%.
Macmillan Cancer Support described the figures as a “worrying picture” and said people living with cancer “cannot keep waiting”, as the charity called for political leaders to deliver the funding and decisions needed to improve services.
The figures also reveal that cancer waiting-time performance in previous quarters was worse than had originally been reported, following the discovery of an error in how some waiting times were calculated.
Previous figures corrected
The Department of Health published the revised figures after identifying an error affecting the calculation of adjusted waits on the encompass patient administration system.
The error related to patients whose treatment waits had been suspended, for example because of medical reasons or at a patient’s request. Instead of deducting the suspension days from the overall waiting time, the system had applied a new wait start date — making some waits appear shorter than they actually were.
Of 13,169 patients included in published 62-day data, 1,206 — around 9% — had suspensions to the start of their treatment. The Department said the calculation error has now been corrected, tested and validated.
The impact is significant.
For the final three months of 2025, the proportion beginning treatment within 62 days had previously been reported as 29.5%. The corrected figure is 25% — a reduction of 4.5 percentage points and the lowest figure shown in the revised series.
Other quarters have also been revised down. The September 2025 quarter fell from 30.1% to 26%, while the June 2025 quarter was revised from 32.5% to 29.1%.
Northern Trust below 29%
The figures also provide a breakdown for each of Northern Ireland’s five health trusts.
For January to March 2026, 28.7% of patients in the Northern Health and Social Care Trust began treatment within 62 days following an urgent GP referral for suspected cancer.
That means around 71% did not begin treatment within the 62-day standard.
The Northern Trust figure was slightly below the Northern Ireland average of 29.6%. The Southern Trust recorded the highest performance at 38.4%, followed by Belfast at 31%, Northern at 28.7%, Western at 25.5% and South Eastern at 24.9%.
The corrected historical figures also show Northern Trust performance falling from 28.4% in the quarter ending June 2025 to 25.4% in September, before increasing to 27.9% in December.
‘People living with cancer cannot keep waiting’
Responding to the latest figures, Sarah Christie, Head of Northern Ireland at Macmillan Cancer Support, said:
“Today’s figures paint a worrying picture for people living with cancer across Northern Ireland. We already knew waiting times for diagnosis and treatment were unacceptably long – and this new, corrected data shows they are worse than first realised.
“This data gives us the clearest picture yet of the scale of the challenge, but clarity isn’t enough: we need action. Northern Ireland is not short of strategies, reviews or plans for improving health and social care. What has been missing is the political urgency and willingness to take the difficult, impactful decisions needed to turn those plans into change. Without a clear budget in place, change simply isn’t possible.
“The Executive must move beyond acknowledging pressures and begin to deliver the funding, priorities and actions required to deliver meaningful improvement - and then follow through on them.
“People living with cancer cannot keep waiting. They need decisions to be made, change to be delivered and political leaders to be accountable for making it happen.”
What the 62-day target means
Northern Ireland’s cancer waiting-time standard states that at least 95% of patients should begin their first definitive treatment within 62 days of an urgent GP referral for suspected cancer.
The clock generally starts when the health trust receives the initial urgent referral and ends when the patient receives their first definitive cancer treatment.
The Department stressed that most patients included in the 62-day figures were not affected by the reporting error because they did not have a suspension in their treatment wait. However, among those who did, the previous calculation made waits appear shorter.
The error did not affect the 14-day breast cancer report. A related issue affecting the 31-day cancer treatment report involved 134 of 25,015 waits, with the Department describing its impact on published performance as minimal.
The Department says all data in the revised publication has been validated and quality assured in conjunction with Northern Ireland’s health trusts.
A further Northern Ireland Cancer Waiting Times release is scheduled for 1 October 2026, when revised 62-day data tables, including breakdowns by cancer site, are due to be published.
