Hospitals are meant to start cancer treatment within 62 days of an urgent GP referral. Government cancer strategies have always insisted that meeting that deadline is vital in order to ease patient anxiety, lower the risk of complications, and improve outcomes. It is impossible to tell exactly what impact waiting longer might have: much depends on the type of cancer and whether it is diagnosed at an advanced stage or not. Nearly three-quarters of services are failing to meet that deadline. The worst performer was the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells trust, which saw fewer than 61% of patients within 62 days. Bosses there said they had seen a larger surge in demand than in other services. Other trusts have also pointed to increased demand, with the biggest regional centres seeing the most complex cases that tend to take the longest time.