§ Mrs. SpelmanTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will make a statement on the progress his Department has made on meeting the target for seeing patients diagnosed with breast cancer within two weeks. [94030]
§ Yvette CooperThe first quarter's data on achieving the two week standard for the urgent referral of patients suspected of having breast cancer were published on 24 September. These showed that 91.1 per cent. of patients were seen within two weeks of urgent referral by their general practitioner. This represents some 12,500 women seen within two weeks of urgent referral out of a total of nearly 13,700 patients seen during the quarter. This was an encouraging start to achieving the standard and the Department is currently working with poorer performing National Health Service trusts to ensure improvement in performance in the second quarter.