ALMOST 35,000 more patients a month are waiting longer than two weeks for a cancer hospital appointment since the Conservatives came to power, according to Labour.

Compared to when they were last in government in 2010, Labour said that close to 420,000 extra people this year will wait more than two weeks for a follow-up after having been told by their GP that they might have cancer.

Labour said the longer waits cannot be blamed on Covid pandemic backlogs.

Citing figures supplied by the House of Commons Library, party officials said that, when Labour left office in May 2010, 3,135 patients had been waiting to see a hospital cancer specialist for more than a fortnight.

By January 2020, two months before coronavirus restrictions were put in place, 19,035 had been waiting that long — a sixfold increase.

The party said it recognised that the number of referrals for suspected cancer has gone up in the past 13 years.

However, it said Commons Library data provided to Labour showed that the proportion of patients who are seen within two weeks has fallen for every type of cancer compared with 2010.

Commons Library analysis indicates that in 2010/11, 95.5 per cent of all suspected cancer patients received a follow-up appointment within two weeks.

That fell to 79.4 per cent in 2022/23.

Shadow health minister Karin Smyth said: “After 13 years of Tory government cancer care is in crisis.

“The Tories have left too many cancer patients waiting too long for a diagnosis, specialist appointments, and to begin their treatment. When it comes to cancer, delays cost lives.”

The Conservative Party suggested that Labour’s opposition to the government’s plan, as first announced in the Budget, to scrap the lifetime pensions allowance would cause more doctors to retire early.