NHS England are retiring one of the cancer waiting times targets - the 2 Week Wait (2WW) standard, which aims for people with suspected cancer to see a specialist within 14 days of being urgently referred by their GP or a cancer screening programme. It is being replaced with the 28 day Faster Diagnosis Standard. The standard ensures patients will be diagnosed or have cancer ruled out within 28 days of being referred urgently by their GP for suspected cancer.

As in the vast majority of cases, patients will have their cancer diagnosis made or excluded in secondary care, there is unlikely to be a major change to GP processes for prompt referral of patients with suspected cancer. The standard itself is something unlikely to be measurable in GP clinical systems directly, and is likely to be monitored using hospital data.

For this reason, this element of the Ardens Fast Track Safety Netting System  will continue to function in the same way was it has done, alerting after 3 weeks if there is no SNOMED-coded record in the GP notes of a patient having been seen following a fast-track referral.

We will be gradually replacing 2ww terminology in our other tools to reflect this new standard, as these undergo routine maintenance.

For more information, see the following link:

https://www.england.nhs.uk/cancer/faster-diagnosis/