What the average waiting times have been for cancer patients from (a) diagnosis and (b) urgent GP referral to start of treatment in each of…

(a) Information on waiting timesfrom diagnosis to treatment is only collected centrally for patients with breastcancer. The data presented in the following table therefore refer to breast cancerpatients only.
Number of Breast Cancer Patients with the Median Waitbetween Diagnosis and First Treatment by Period of Diagnosis
Period of Diagnosis
| Number of Patients with Recorded Treatment Date
| Median wait Between Diagnosis and First Treatment

1 January to 31 March 2004
| 866
| 18

1 April to 30 June 2004
| 868
| 20

1 July to 30 September 2004
| 808
| 20

1 October to 31 December 2004
| 938
| 21

1 January to 31 March 2005
| 871
| 20

1 April to 30 June 2005
| 959
| 20

1 July to 30 September 2005
| 899
| 20

1 October to 31 December 2005
| 934
| 21

1 January to 31 March 2006
| 966
| 20

1 April to 30 June 2006
| 925
| 20

1 July to 30 September 2006
| 937
| 21

1 October to 31 December 2006
| 954
| 20

Source: Information ServicesDivision, NHS National Services Scotland.
Exclusion categories are: diedprior to receiving treatment, refused treatment, patient induced non-clinical delay,co-morbidities, clinical reasons and initially referred to another non-cancer speciality.
(b) Information on the waitingtimes of cancer patients between referral and first treatment are collected centrally.These are collated to report performance against the target that “the maximum waitfrom urgent referral to treatment for all cancers will be two months”. Quarterlyperformance information against that target, broken down by NHS board and cancertype is available from the Scottish Executive website at www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics