YORK Hospital has breached a target for cancer patients to be treated within 62 days of them being referred by their GPs, the local NHS trust has revealed.

North Yorkshire and York Primary Care Trust (PCT), said in January, York Hospital reported seven breaches of the target for the PCT's patients, and that in February it reported two-and-a-half breaches.

Mike Proctor, deputy chief executive of York Hospital, said: "It's important that we treat cancer patients as quickly as possible and as quickly as is individually appropriate to do so because it's important for those patients."

He said some of York Hospital's breaches were due to problems in the hospital it was sending patients to for treatment, and that there had been no breaches in the target at York Hospital since the end of March.

The target demands that 95 per cent of those patients must have their first treatment within 62 days of an urgent referral from a GP.

In January, York Hospital achieved 84.1 per cent of the target for the PCT's patients, and in February, 91.9 per cent.

The findings were considered at a meeting of the PCT's board in Malton on Tuesday.

Richard Reed, assistant director of business intelligence at the PCT, said that two-and-a-half of the breaches were in urological cancers - which excludes testicular cancer - that two-and-a-half were in lung cancers, that one was in lower gastrointestinal cancer, and that one was in head and neck cancers.

Mr Proctor said: "There are several issues here in terms of where patients might breach a 62-day cancer target. One is that they might be on very complex pathways. It might be a very complex diagnosis pathway, which may take time, which is why it's a 95 per cent target that we have to meet - there's general acceptance that some things may take longer.

"On some of the breaches that we've had there were problems in the hospital that we were sending patients to, for example we had some problems on lung cancers."

He said York Hospital did not treat lung cancer, and that it referred patients with the condition to Hull. "If the patients are not treated within a 62-day target then we share a breach - we get half a breach each between ourselves and Hull," he said. "The problem in Hull on the lung cancer in particular was that the surgeon that operates on patients with lung cancer from York had a period away from work of about a month. "Therefore, through no fault of ours, those patients were not operated on within the target day."

He said that problem had since been resolved, and that York Hospital has been doing "specific things for each individual patient to prevent breaches. It's just about attention to detail for every patient," he said.

Mr Reed said: "What we want to see is some arrangements in place to provide cover where consultants are not available for one reason or another and we would like to see more effective transfer of patients between trusts."