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Hospitals have banned units which diagnose and treat cancer from hiring doctors as part of an NHS cost-cutting drive, despite the growing demand for care.
Exactly half of the UK’s 60 specialist cancer treatment centres had a freeze on recruiting clinical oncologists imposed on them during 2025, more than double the 13 (23%) seen the year before.
Similarly, more than a third (36%) of the 160 radiology departments – which perform and analyse scans – were subjected last year to a ban on hiring clinical radiologists, up from 19% in 2024, according to information supplied by 138 of the UK’s 160 such units.
The Royal College of Radiologists, which collected the figures, warned that the dramatic rise in staffing freezes could lead to “dangerous” delays in cancers being spotted and treated.
Dr Stephen Harden, the RCR’s president, criticised the bans as “shortsighted”, bad for patients, damaging to NHS personnel’s morale and likely to cost more money in the long term.
He added that refusing to let cancer centres and radiology departments hire doctors when they need them could directly affect cancer patients’ treatment and have “tragic consequences”.
Harden said: “Recruitment freezes worsen the already chronic shortage of doctors that has led to long waits, late diagnoses and delays, causing patients to have more limited treatment options, and some presenting too late to receive treatment at all.
“Any delay can be distressing. But for patients with suspected cancer it is particularly dangerous [as] each month’s delay to starting cancer treatment can increase the risk of death by around 10%.”
He blamed the hiring bans on the “reset” of the NHS’s finances which the chief executive of NHS England, Sir Jim Mackey, ordered last spring to tackle a looming £6.6bn overspend in 2025-26. That forced all NHS trusts to make substantial savings.
Most of the freezes uncovered by an RCR workforce census were imposed on units in England.
“In England, NHS finances are under particular pressure following efforts to rein in spending, and that has led many trusts to look for rapid savings, including by restricting recruitment. But shortsighted recruitment freezes don’t save money in the long term,” Harden added.
The RCR’s disclosures follows the launch this week of the government’s plan to improve cancer care in England. It includes proposals to increase the number of cancer doctors in rural and coastal parts of England, which often struggle to recruit enough specialists in the disease.
Smaller cancer centres and radiology departments in the UK, which mainly serve rural communities, were much more likely than bigger ones to be banned from hiring doctors, the RCR found.
Across the UK 60% of cancer centres in rural or deprived areas experienced a recruitment freeze, compared with 48% in urban and better-off areas.
In 2023 Cancer Research UK (CRUK) estimated that the NHS in England would need to hire 16,000 more staff to work in cancer services by 2029 to ensure they keep up with rising demand, including 8,300 diagnostic radiographers, 4,600 radiologists and 790 medical and clinical oncologists.
Under the new plan for England the workforce tackling the disease will grow over the next few years, with “higher numbers of staff in professional groups integral to cancer care”.
The plan also stressed that technology would play a key role in making cancer professionals more productive and their working lives easier. It proposes that “AI will be the assistant in the pockets of the oncology workforce, supporting better treatment planning and cutting down admin to create more ‘time to care’.”
Harden said that unless the problem was addressed, persistent understaffing of cancer units would undermine Wes Streeting’s aim to improve early diagnosis and treatment of the disease.
“It’s encouraging to see the government set out ambitious plans to improve cancer care in the new National Cancer Plan for England,” he said. “But hiring bans in radiology departments and cancer centres sit in clear tension with commitments to diagnose cancer earlier and treat it faster, and they need to end.
“With cancer diagnoses expected to rise in the coming years, the NHS will need these highly skilled clinicians more than ever.”
The importance of tackling cancer means that “radiology departments and cancer centres should not be subject to recruitment freezes. The UK needs almost 2,000 more radiologists and nearly 200 more clinical oncologists just to meet current demand,” he added.
The RCR found that hiring bans contributed to the NHS across the UK spending a record £325m in 2024 on locums to help plug rota gaps and on private firms – some based abroad – to analyse scans when NHS radiology departments did not have the capacity to do so,.
CRUK backed the RCR’s call for cancer services to be fully staffed. Holly Norman, the charity’s head of health systems engagement, said: “Radiologists and oncologists are vital for ensuring people affected by cancer are diagnosed and treated quickly. With more people in England being diagnosed with cancer every year, it’s essential that the forthcoming 10-year workforce plan lays out steps to ensure our health service is able to train and recruit enough of these and other specialist staff to meet rising demand.
“The UK government has set out welcome ambitions this week to improve early diagnosis and to improve cancer waiting times, but these promises will only be met if the NHS is properly resourced with enough staff and equipment.”
NHS England did not respond directly to the findings. A spokesperson said only: “Having grown both radiology and oncology workforces by around 5% in 2024, the NHS will transform cancer care through our new national cancer plan, rolling out new specialist training places in underserved areas and designing new care models around people’s lives.
“NHS England is rightly supporting local systems in financial deficit to live within their means and continue improving productivity, to help the NHS treat more people for cancer than ever while delivering value for taxpayers.”
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