Publication of Northern Ireland Cancer Waiting Times Statistics: January to March 2025

Date published: 3 July 2025

This release gives details of the waiting times for patients accessing cancer services at hospitals in Northern Ireland during January, February, and March 2025.

On 9 November 2023 the South Eastern Health and Social Care (HSC) Trust launched 'encompass' - a new electronic patient record system. The system also went live in Belfast Trust on 6 June 2024, in Northern Trust on 7 November 2024, and in Southern and Western Trusts on 8 May 2025. No validated data for Belfast Trust for the quarter ending June 2024, and no breast cancer referrals data for this Trust for the quarter ending September 2024, were available at the time of publication.

Data sourced from encompass are not directly comparable with legacy (pre-encompass) data sources. These figures, sourced from encompass, are considered to be 'official statistics in development', which are a subset of Official Statistics in line with the Code of Practice for Statistics. While caution must be exercised when using these figures, they are a meaningful representation of what they measure and are of sufficient quality for publication and use.

Key Facts

Target data for the HSC Trusts have been revised due to the ongoing development and evaluation of data sourced from encompass.

Waiting times for first definitive treatment following a decision to treat (31-day target)

• In the quarter ending March 2025, 2,482 patients started treatment following a decision to treat, of which 88.2% (2,190) started treatment within 31 days. The target was not achieved at a regional level. The number of patients starting treatment decreased by 15.6% (458) since last quarter and decreased by 14.7% (429) from the same quarter last year.
• The percentage of patients starting treatment within 31 days increased from 87.5% in the previous quarter and increased from 86.6% in the same quarter last year.

Waiting times for first definitive treatment following an urgent GP referral for suspect cancer (62-day target)

• In the quarter ending March 2025, 1,261 patients started treatment following an urgent GP referral for suspect cancer, of which 33.9% (428) started treatment within 62 days. The number of patients treated decreased by 12.7% (184) since last quarter and decreased by 9.2% (128) since the same quarter last year.
• The percentage of patients starting treatment within 62 days decreased from 34.2% in the previous quarter and increased from 31.4% in the same quarter last year.

Patients first seen following an urgent referral for suspect breast cancer (14-day target)

• In the quarter ending March 2025, 3,329 patients were seen by a breast cancer specialist following an urgent referral, of which 30.4% (1,013) were seen within 14 days. The number of patients seen decreased by 5.2% (183) from last quarter and decreased by 7.7% (276) from the same quarter last year.
• The percentage of patients seen within 14 days decreased from 31.7% in the previous quarter and decreased from 34.1% in the same quarter last year.

Referrals for suspect breast cancer

• In the quarter ending March 2025, 6,115 referrals were received by HSC Trusts for suspect breast cancer, of which 83.5% (5,106) were classified as urgent.