Cancer Focus NI Calls on Parties to Make Cancer a Protected Priority for 2027

Cancer Focus Northern Ireland has put cancer firmly on the Stormont steps — launching its 2027 Assembly Election Manifesto and calling on every party to make cancer a protected, fully funded priority for the next mandate.

The timing is deliberate. More than 14,000 people are diagnosed with cancer in Northern Ireland each year. More than 4,500 die from it. Over 107,000 people are living with and beyond cancer. Behind those numbers are families still waiting for answers, treatment and the kind of support that makes the rest of life possible.

Alongside the manifesto, the charity has opened a public petition that lets people across Northern Ireland contact their MLA directly and ask them to keep cancer at the front of the next Programme for Government. The petition and manifesto sit at cancerfocusni.org/about-us/policy-advocacy.

The waiting-time gap nobody can ignore

Official Department of Health figures underline why the charity is pushing now. Only 29.5% of patients began treatment within 62 days of an urgent GP referral — against a 95% target. Just 7.9% of urgent breast cancer referrals were seen within 14 days. Those numbers cover October to December 2025 and were published by NISRA in April 2026.

Cancer Focus NI warns delays can change outcomes and ratchet up anxiety for patients and families. It also flags stubborn inequalities: people in the most deprived communities often fare worse. Northern Ireland’s ten-year Cancer Strategy landed in 2022; the charity’s message today is blunt — ambition without delivery is not enough.

“Cancer will not wait, and neither should the people of Northern Ireland. The next Executive must protect cancer funding, publish a clear delivery plan and be accountable for progress,” said Nora Smith, Director of Policy, Research and External Engagement at Cancer Focus Northern Ireland. “People deserve a timely diagnosis and treatment, regardless of where they live or how they enter the system.”

Health Minister Robbie Butler welcomed the manifesto and said many of its objectives line up with the Department’s work on prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care — and with implementing the Northern Ireland Cancer Strategy.

Five commitments for the next Assembly

The manifesto sets out five asks parties are being pressed to adopt:

1. Treat cancer faster — a recovery plan to hit the 62-day standard, count every referral route in waiting-time figures, and put legal accountability across the whole pathway.
2. Support every person affected — invest in a regional network of Cancer Therapeutic Support Centres and weave psychological, rehabilitation and practical help in from diagnosis. The charity’s Fermanagh centre saw more than 3,500 visits in its first year.
3. Diagnose cancer earlier — targeted lung cancer screening for people at high risk, lower the bowel screening age to 50, grow diagnostic capacity and rapid-access routes, and back primary care.
4. Prevent more cancers and cut inequality — fund a Tobacco and Vapes Strategy and cessation services, introduce Minimum Unit Pricing for alcohol, strengthen healthy weight and activity work, develop a Skin Cancer Strategy and ban commercial sunbeds, and set measurable inequality targets. Around four in ten cancers are preventable.
5. Deliver the Cancer Strategy — a fully costed Cancer Action Plan, multi-year funding, more workforce and infrastructure, and annual reporting against milestones. The pack also calls for a dedicated metastatic breast cancer pathway, a Secondary Breast Cancer Nurse Specialist for every patient, and a UK-wide Right to Be Forgotten so survivors are not unfairly shut out of insurance, loans or mortgages.

Why the personal story lands

Hillsborough breast cancer survivor Elspeth Flenley, who used Cancer Focus NI services, put the human case for psychological support on the political agenda.

“When I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I knew it would be the biggest physical battle of my life, but I didn’t think it would be the biggest mental fight I’d ever faced too. The treatment and care I received in the Ulster Hospital was incredible, but it took all of the mental and emotional support I received through Cancer Focus NI to bring me out the other side of treatment, ready to face the world again. Every cancer patient should have access to this type of emotional recovery support, which is why its placement on the political agenda is imperative.”

Cancer Focus NI supports more than 4,000 people each year through free services and reaches more than 43,000 through prevention and awareness work. The charity’s pitch for 2027 is simple: fewer people developing cancer, more diagnosed earlier, everyone treated on time, and nobody facing it alone.

For readers already following local cancer fundraising and awareness, see our recent coverage of Action Cancer’s Paint the Town Pink launch at Stormont and the Titanic Hotel’s Yellow Daisy afternoon tea for Cancer Fund for Children.

Manifesto, petition and next steps: cancerfocusni.org/about-us/policy-advocacy.

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