Amy knows just how agonizing it can be to wait for a cancer diagnosis. During the pandemic, her mom, Jane, was suffering from crippling stomach pain. Despite having already battled cancer for 16 years, it took a further two months for her to be seen and diagnosed.

She went to her consultant and they sent her for some scans, and they found out that the cancer, sadly, had returned and had spread from her bladder to her liver, her lymph, and her spine. They knew that it had got quite serious, and they were working on end-of-life care.

In the UK, between 2012 and 2017, 63% of patients diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer survived for five years. But that's fewer than patients in Norway, Canada, and Australia. Those countries use chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Only 27.7% of lung cancer patients in the UK were treated with chemotherapy compared to 45% in Norway and 41% in Australia. Older patients in the UK were least likely to be treated with chemotherapy and radiotherapy, with only 2% patients over 85 years old receiving that treatment, compared to 8% in Australia and 14% in Ontario, Canada.

Whether this is due to staffing or increased demand is undoubtedly it's due to both. We know that the staffing problems in the NHS are long-standing and the workforce challenges remain and are getting greater. In terms of the population, the population is getting older. We are diagnosing more cancers than we were were previously, and we expect there to be an increasing number of patients diagnosed with cancer.

Nhs England told Sky News more people than ever are being diagnosed with an early stage of cancer and offered more treatment options. Amy will never know if an earlier diagnosis and faster treatment could have saved her mom. She can only wish that she had been given that chance. Our Shoshy, Sky News.