North East London continues to lead the way in cancer standards performance

The latest national data on cancer standards from NHS England and Improvement shows that North East London is the top performing alliance in the country in 6 out of 10 cancer waits standards, building on our positive results from earlier this year.

Dr Angela Wong, Chief Medical Officer for the North East London Cancer Alliance, says: “This is a great achievement and reflects the hard work of our cancer teams in Barts Health, Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Trust, and Homerton University Hospital, working in partnership with the North East London Cancer Alliance, our GPs, and local partners.

“Our ground-breaking projects such as the Mile End Early Diagnosis Centre, which provides an extra 16,500 procedures annually, are really having a positive impact. Our clinical diagnostic leads are also instrumental to our success. Their work on the delivery of best practice patient pathways has been a huge team effort.”

The data is from April 2022 and shows cancer waiting times performance by region, cancer alliance and Integrated Care System (ICS). North East London came top in the following cancer standards:

  • 2ww 1st seen standard: Patients are seen within two weeks from a referral from their GP for both urgent cancer and breast symptomatic (where there are symptoms, but breast cancer is not suspected).
  • Faster Diagnosis Standard: The performance standard to ensure patients who are referred for suspected cancer have a timely diagnosis. The target is that 75% of patients will be diagnosed or have cancer ruled out within 28 days of being referred urgently by their GP for suspected cancer.
  • 31 day treatment standards for 1st treatment, subsequent surgery and subsequent radiotherapy: Patients, regardless of how they came to be diagnosed with cancer, should receive their treatment within a month of a deciding to treat their cancer.

Femi Odewale, Managing Director of the North East London Cancer Alliance, says: “These results show that we are making a big difference to the health and wellbeing of our local residents through helping to spot cancer sooner and providing quicker access to treatment. This is an example of what can be achieved by working in collaboration across many different partners and locations.

“The hard work does not stop here as we continue to innovate, finding new ways to diagnose cancer more quickly and improve treatment for cancer patients".

“I’m incredibly proud of what our cancer teams have achieved, and I want to personally thank our staff for all their hard work.”