ONE in five cancer patients in Warrington wait for more than two months to begin the first stages of their treatment after being diagnosed with the disease according to new figures.

National guidelines state that a minimum of 85 per cent of people should start treatment within 62 days of them being referred by their GP following a cancer diagnosis.

But the most recent figures for the 2016/17 period have shown that only 79.4 per cent of such patients in the town were seen within that timeframe.

Health bosses met at the Gateway on Sankey Street to discuss the issue during an NHS Warrington Clinical Commissioning Group governing body meeting yesterday, Wednesday.

A meeting agenda states that NHS Warrington CCG is likely to be flagged as an ‘outlier’ for cancer treatment waiting times when the next NHS England improvement and assessment report is published.

It adds that breaches have been caused by clinical reasons, referrals to the treating trust after a period of 38 days by Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and a high demand for robotic surgery at Wirral University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

NHS Warrington CCG highlighted that Warrington and Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is meeting targets for NHS England recommendations to refer patients within 38 days.

Treatment times improved from 79.4 per cent in quarter two to 84.8 per cent in October, but the meeting agenda states that ‘until further month’s data is available it cannot be assumed that this will be indicative of a sustained period of improvement’.

Dr Sue Burke, clinical lead for cancer for NHS Warrington CCG, said: “The majority of our cancer patients have their first definitive treatment by day 62 in line with national cancer waiting times.

“When a breach of this target occurs we work closely with providers to continuously review patient pathways to streamline and remove any unnecessary delays.

“The reasons any individual patient may breach are varied and not necessarily due to any fault in the system, but often relate to the complexity of their particular cancer pathway or to patients being unavailable or choosing to delay their appointments or investigations for person reasons.”