Why is the NHS lagging behind on cancer care?
This Is Why
Sky News
4.0 • 552 Ratings
🗓️ 3 February 2026
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Half of us will develop cancer at some point in our lives, according to Cancer Research UK. And the speed of a diagnosis can often be the difference between life and death.
Just a one-month delay can raise the risk of death by up to 10%. Yet in England, almost a third of cancer patients wait more than two months to start treatment after an urgent GP referral - twice as many as the target and a trend that’s getting worse.
As the Westminster government prepares to publish its new 10-year cancer plan - what can we learn from elsewhere in the world? In Denmark, for example, cancer waiting lists have virtually been eliminated and survival rates are rocketing.
Niall speaks to Sky’s health correspondent Ashish Joshi and Jesper Fisker from the Danish Cancer Society.
Producer: Natalie Ktena & Sam Gruet
Editor: Mike Bovill
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Sky News, the full story first. |
| 0:09.3 | Coming up, the NHS is preparing to launch its 10-year plan for cancer care with lessons learned from Denmark. |
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| 1:23.5 | I find it pretty difficult to talk about cancer. |
| 1:31.3 | That's in part because I've seen what it does to the people you love, but also because of the frustrations they've experienced being treated on the NHS. |
| 1:37.3 | When you're waiting for a diagnosis, a day feels like a year and waiting and waiting. Delays don't just cause anxiety. They cost lives. |
| 1:48.0 | Last November, almost a third of cancer patients in England |
| 1:52.0 | waited more than two months to start treatment after an urgent GP referral. |
| 1:56.0 | That's twice as many as the NHS target allows. |
... |
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