The Hawke's Bay District Health Board is defending its performance regarding wait times for patients with a high suspicion of cancer receiving their first round of treatment.
For the past two months of 2018, as well as February this year, 100 per cent of patients were seen within the Government's "faster cancer treatment" target of 62 days.
But in January, the DHB reached 70 per cent, meaning three patients waited longer than 62 days for urgent treatment.
The national target expects 90 per cent of patients with a high suspicion of cancer at each DHB to be receiving their first bout of cancer treatment within 62 days.
The HBDHB fall just short of the rolling six month target, at 89 per cent.
Out of all 20 DHBs, only six had a record of achieving target, seven fell below and seven others didn't have those figures available.
HBDHB executive lead, cancer, Dr Andy Phillips said the wait times for those three individuals "isn't acceptable".
"We don't want anybody to have to wait. It is really important that people are diagnosed and treated as quickly as possible in order to get good outcomes. We have been working on improvement for some time now and we have seen big improvements in our cancer waiting times."
However, he said while the "delay is important", it is also important that they give people the best possible care.
"We need to make sure the right people are there to provide the right assessment and treatment and of course we would like that to be done as quickly as we can but sometimes it is a matter of making sure people get the right care as well as rapid care."
He said the delay over the January period was down to limited staff away on annual leave, as well as industrial strike action.
Furthermore, as a "relatively small centre", the HBDHB sends all radiation patients to MidCentral DHB, and other more complex cancer treatments are sent to other hospitals, meaning delays can happen.
"We rely on our partners in other centres to see people quickly and we certainly need to improve our ways of getting them there, but also we are working with those places to make sure they see our people in the time scales we would expect."
Ministry of Health director-general of health Dr Ashley Bloomfield said Ministry officials were working with DHBs who were not meeting target to understand what the issues were, and what specific actions were under way to improve performance.
"The Ministry of Health is also working on a national cancer action plan to improve collaboration between DHBs, their clinicians, and the wider cancer care sector. The aim is to improve national consistency of services, equity and health outcomes for people with this disease," Bloomfield said.