Having your radiotherapy privately may sometimes enable you to get the treatment quicker but it is very expensive unless you are privately insured. But at the present time there are only a very few private hospitals in the UK that have radiotherapy departments. This means that the great majority of private radiotherapy is done in NHS hospitals, with the patient's (or their insurers) paying the NHS for the course of treatment.

Unfortunately there is a national shortage of radiotherapy treatment machines (and also a shortage of the staff to operate and maintain the equipment) so long waiting times for treatment are common. The government is spending a lot of money to change this but it will still be some years before the situation really improves. This is because it takes many months to install new radiotherapy machines and 3-4 years to train staff to operate them .

Many radiotherapy departments have strict policies that do not allow private patients to get treatment any sooner than those on the NHS so, unless you go to one of the few private hospitals that offer radiotherapy, paying for treatment may not actually get it started any quicker.

Having said this all radiotherapy departments do look very carefully at the urgency of the need for treatment for every patient. Although it is often hard for patients and their relatives to understand, or come to terms with, very often radiotherapy for cancer (particularly if it is being given as a precautionary treatment after an operation has removed a cancer) is not very urgent and a delay of even a few months does not significantly reduce the chance of cure.

Usually if the doctors feel that radiotherapy treatment is needed urgently then those patients will be given priority and get treatment more quickly (although this may still mean a few weeks wait).

Everyone agrees that the current situation is unsatisfactory and plans are in place to improve things as soon as possible. Almost certainly the hospital where your father is to be treated will have looked at his case and decided that a wait of ten weeks is unlikely to reduce his chance of successful treatment even though they and you would much prefer to get it done sooner.