Last reviewed: 8 May 2024
Last reviewed: 8 May 2024
The Faster Diagnosis Standard (FDS) was introduced in 2021, measuring the time from urgent cancer referral to when the person is told they do or do not have cancer. Urgent referrals include people receiving an urgent GP referral for suspected cancer, an urgent breast referral or an urgent referral from one of the national cancer screening programmes. NHS England aims to diagnose or rule out cancer for 80% of people within 28 days.
Previous CRUK analysis has shown FDS performance was higher for referrals where cancer was ruled out that for people who were diagnosed. This analysis explores the latest trends in differences between people who have cancer ruled out and those who are diagnosed. Analyses were conducted for all eligible referrals combined and for selected suspected cancer sites.
In the latest quarter, July – September 2026, 78.0% people received a cancer diagnosis or had cancer ruled out within 28 days of a suspected cancer referral, against a Faster Diagnosis Standard (FDS) target of 80%.
79.5% of people who had cancer ruled out were informed within 28 days.
Of people who were ultimately diagnosed with cancer, only 56.2% received their diagnosis within 28 days. This is 23.8 percentage points short of the 80% target.
Improvements in overall performance are only being driven by improvements in performance for people who have cancer ruled out.
In the latest 12 months (October 2025 – September 2026), FDS performance was 55.4% for referrals that resulted in a cancer diagnosis, 0.4 percentage points lower than compared with the previous year.
In comparison, in the latest 12 months, FDS performance was 79.1% for referrals where cancer was ruled out, an increase of 1.1 percentage points to the previous year.
In the latest 12 months (October 2025 – September 2026), for suspected cancer types:
Sarcoma and urological cancer referrals had the lowest performance among referrals that resulted in a cancer diagnosis (30.7% and 31.7%, respectively).
Head and neck cancer referrals showed the largest difference between performance for referrals that resulted in a cancer diagnosis (35.9%) and those where cancer was ruled out (78.9%), a difference of 43.0 percentage points.
Urological cancer referrals saw the largest improvement in performance among referrals that resulted in a cancer diagnosis (+2.9 percentage points) compared with the previous year. Breast cancer referrals saw the biggest drop in performance for people who went on to be diagnosed with cancer (-4.2 percentage points).
Hannah Long, Kirstin Roberts, Diana Nagarwalla, Sophia Lowes, Katie Sutton, Mishell Mahabubul, Jon Shelton, for the Cancer Intelligence Team at Cancer Research UK.
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