Best practice timed pathways support the ongoing improvement effort to shorten diagnosis pathways, reduce variation, improve experience of care, and meet the Faster Diagnosis Standard (FDS).

The 28-day Faster Diagnosis Standard remains the single standard by which the speed of diagnosis of cancer will be measured under Cancer Waiting Times. However, some types of cancer are particularly aggressive, and particular effort should be made to diagnose them even faster than the headline target. Many hepato-pancreatic biliary (HPB) cancers fall into this category, and the pathways in this document, which set out the sequence of events that would be required to complete the diagnostic process wherever possible within 21 days are reflective of that.

This HPB pathway is part of a series, which includes the oesophago-gastric pathway and completes the pathways that cover upper gastrointestinal cancers, published since April 2018.