Urgent cancer appointments, October 2009 to August 2025

A line chart from the Institute for Government showing Urgent cancer appointments, October 2009 to August 2025. The number of urgent cancer appointments has more than tripled since 2009, rising from under 75,105 to over 282,981 by mid-2025. There was a sharp drop in 2020 due to the pandemic, but activity quickly rebounded and now exceeds the pre-pandemic trend.

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Source: Institute for Government analysis of NHS England, ‘Cancer waiting times’ ('Monthly data – Two week wait from GP urgent' table), August 2025.Notes: Figures relate to England. This is a 3-month rolling average. The ‘trend’ line is a seasonal forecast, using pre-Covid data as the baseline. An appointment is “urgent” when a GP suspects that a patient may have cancer.Get the dataEmbed Download image