More than 1,000 people a week in north Wales placed on suspected cancer pathway, data shows
More than 1,000 people a week in north Wales are being placed on a suspected cancer pathway, according to the latest figures from the Welsh Government.
In the 12 months to February 2026, 52,619 patients in the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board area entered a pathway after a GP or other clinician suspected they might have cancer.
That works out at roughly 1,012 a week, or one referral every 10 minutes around the clock.
The figure does not mean all of those patients went on to be diagnosed with cancer. A suspected cancer pathway is the formal route into urgent investigation, and the majority of people on it are eventually given the all-clear.
But the volume of referrals is a measure of pressure on the NHS in north Wales, and a snapshot of how often the question is being asked.
The most recent month for which figures are available is February 2026, when 4,411 patients in the Betsi Cadwaladr area were placed on a suspected cancer pathway.
Across the 28 days of February, that averages around 158 patients a day.
While the headline figure is broadly stable in the patch, almost every other part of Wales is recording sharper rises.
The data shows that suspected cancer pathway openings in the Betsi Cadwaladr area rose by 0.1% year on year, from 52,554 in the 12 months to February 2025 to 52,619 in the 12 months to February 2026.
Across Wales as a whole, openings rose by 2.1% over the same period.
Cardiff and Vale University Health Board recorded the largest rise, up 10.6%.
Cwm Taf Morgannwg was up 7.6%, Swansea Bay up 5%, and Hywel Dda up 2.3%.
Aneurin Bevan, in south-east Wales, was the only other health board to record a fall, down 5.3%.
Betsi Cadwaladr accounts for 26.2% of all suspected cancer pathways opened in Wales over the past year, the largest share of any health board.
The data does not say why patterns differ between health boards. Possible explanations include differences in GP referral behaviour, in population demographics, in the way pathway data is recorded locally, or in the capacity of each board’s diagnostic services.
Within the Betsi Cadwaladr area, the picture varies considerably between different types of suspected cancer.
Suspected breast cancer pathway openings were down 8.2% year on year, falling from 6,485 to 5,955.
Across Wales, breast cancer openings rose 2.1% over the same period.
Suspected urological cancer was down 6.8% in the patch, and suspected lung cancer was down 5.7%.
Conversely, suspected haematological cancer pathway openings rose 22.3% in the Betsi Cadwaladr area, with gynaecological cancer up 7.5% and head and neck cancer up 3.9%.
The “other” category, which captures suspected cancers that do not fit the main tumour-site groupings, rose by 35.4%.
Skin remains by far the largest single category, accounting for 10,736 of the suspected cancer pathways opened in the patch over the past 12 months.
Lower gastrointestinal cancer accounted for 7,628, and upper gastrointestinal for 6,835.
Over a longer period, the picture in the Betsi Cadwaladr area is one of sustained but slowing growth.
In the 12 months to November 2022, the earliest comparable period in the published data, the area recorded 48,543 suspected cancer pathway openings.
That figure rose to 52,427 in the year to February 2024 and has plateaued at around 52,500 since.
The Welsh Government’s separate cancer waiting times performance data, which measures how quickly patients are seen and treated once on the pathway, is published in a separate statistical bulletin.
The figures in this article relate solely to the volume of patients being placed onto a suspected cancer pathway, not to the time taken for diagnosis or treatment.
The full data is published by the Welsh Government and is available at stats.gov.wales.
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