More than 60,000 cancer patients in England ‘not getting necessary radiotherapy’

More than 60,000 cancer patients a year in England are not getting the radiotherapy they need at all, while some face waits of up to six months to begin the treatment, research has found.

The situation is so dire that nearly 100 heads of radiotherapy and oncology – three-quarters of England’s radiotherapy leaders – have warned in an open letter that the government is failing patients.

International experts agree that more than half (53%) of all cancer patients will typically need radiotherapy, but exclusive analysis of the latest NHS data in England shows only 35% actually receive it. The study by the charity Radiotherapy UK found 181,023 cancer patients should have received radiotherapy but only 120,569 did, leaving 60,455 patients a year without any radiotherapy at all.

Regional inequalities are rife. In south-west England, 36% of patients receive radiotherapy, meaning around 7,200 patients miss out, while in the south-east, 33.7% receive treatment, with more than 10,100 missing out.

The leading oncologist and chair of Radiotherapy UK, Prof Pat Price, said: “Thousands of cancer patients risk dying prematurely either because they are not getting radiotherapy at all or because of huge delays in starting radiation treatment.”

She added: “Radiotherapy is one of the most cost-effective and curative cancer treatments we have. It is not a ‘nice to have’, this is a life-saving treatment.”

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Source: The Guardian, 3 September 2025