NHS England » Cancer Alliances – improving care locally

With over 200 tumour types and complex pathways spanning primary care, diagnostics, specialist services and community stakeholders, cancer care demands a delivery model that is clinically led and system-wide.

With the launch of the National Cancer Plan and the 10 Year Health Plan, Cancer Alliances are uniquely positioned to lead on the fulfilment of national cancer priorities and are set to remain as an essential component of our delivery architecture.

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Cancer Alliances use their expertise to lead whole-system planning and delivery of cancer care on behalf of their constituent ICS(s), as well as providing clinical leadership and advice on commissioning. Delivery priorities, include:

improving cancer pathways, reducing waiting times and meeting operational performance targets;
diagnosing cancer earlier and improving survival, through innovation and scale-up of successful interventions like Lung Cancer Screening, and reducing treatment variation;
improving patient experience and quality of life, supporting providers to implement new follow-up pathways for personalised care;
reducing health inequalities in cancer, using latest data and working with partners to identify solutions.

Each Cancer Alliance brings together the key organisations, stakeholders and advocates in their area to coordinate cancer care and to improve outcomes for patients locally.

Working with their partners, collective achievements of the Cancer Alliances to date, include:

meeting both of the March 2025 targets for the cancer wait time standards despite continued high demand: 77% for the Faster Diagnosis 28-day Standard and 70% for the 62-day standard
delivering the first sustained increase in early diagnosis in a decade
piloting and expanding lung cancer screening, which has helped to close the overall deprivation gap in stage of diagnosis between the richest and poorest areas from 8% points to 6% points;
setting up personalised stratified follow-up in seven tumour pathways, thereby removing over 300,000 unnecessary outpatient appointments in the first three of those pathways alone
continued high patient satisfaction: on average people with cancer rate their overall experience of care at 8.94 out of 10 (Cancer Patient Experience Survey 2024)

The Medium Term Planning Guidance confirms the public ambition to return to meeting the Cancer Waiting Times Standards by March 2029. It also confirms the need to maintain attention on securing further improvements to early cancer diagnosis, and meeting and appropriately managing demand for diagnosis and treatment. Cancer Alliances continue to play an important role to provide expert performance improvement advice and support to providers, ICBs and wider system partners.

Map of Cancer Alliances in England

Alliance boundaries are based on cancer patient pathway flows. Each Alliance footprint aligns as far as possible to one or more whole ICB footprint.

Cancer Alliance Funding

Cancer Alliances look at the care and support patients should expect to receive from diagnosis to follow-up across their whole area, so they can address variation and implement best practice. NHS England provides Cancer Alliances with funding for cancer to assist in their work.

Ringfenced cancer service development funding (SDF) has been announced through the Medium Term Planning Framework until March 2029. This funding must be used by Cancer Alliances to deliver the programmes of work which address the priorities set out in the National Cancer Plan.

Cancer SDF comprises two allocations: place-based (provided to all Alliances on a fair-shares basis); and, targeted (provided to Alliances for targeted projects, with amounts determined by agreed run rates). In receiving funding for cancer, Cancer Alliances are expected to support delivery of projects in a way that supports equity of access and reduces health inequalities for their populations.

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Map of Cancer Alliances in England

Cancer Alliance Funding