Patients are waiting longer than they should to begin cancer treatment at the Countess of Chester Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.
The hospital missed the NHS's 85% target for patients to start treatment within 62 days of an urgent GP referral by almost 10% in the second quarter of 2014.
Of the 155 patients referred to the Countess in that time period, 117 began treatment within 62 days.
The target was also missed nationally, with only 84.1% of patients starting treatment within 62 days which is down on 84.4% for the first quarter of 2014, meaning the target has now been missed for six months.
Countess of Chester deputy chief executive Mark Brandreth told the Chronicle: “This is a difficult target for many hospitals, however we are committed to achieving it.
"We achieved the target for the Quarter 4 (January to March, 2014) but we narrowly failed Quarter 1 (April to June, 2014).
"However, we are seeing an improvement into Quarter 2 . We are improving our own systems, particularly by seeing patients within 7 days of referral for a diagnostic test.
"We are working closely with our GP colleagues as it is important that when they suspect a patient has cancer that we get the patient into the system as quickly as possible.”
