Jim Shannon – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2015-11-03.
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what proportion of people diagnosed with cancer in each of the last five years were diagnosed as a result of attending (a) A&E departments, (b) a GP appointment and (c) a consultant appointment.
Jane Ellison
The proportion of people diagnosed between 2006 and 2010 in England (a) as an emergency presentation was 23%, (b) from a general practitioner (GP) referral (including referrals made via the Two Week Wait (TWW) Pathway) was 54% and (c) by a consultant appointment (other outpatient or inpatient elective) was 13%.
The latest published data is available for 2006 to 2010 from Public Health England’s National Cancer Intelligence Network (NCIN), with an update to these figures taking data up to 2013 being due for publication shortly.
The breakdown by year is shown in the table below:
|
Year |
Route |
||
|
GP – GP referrals and TWW referrals |
Consultant (other outpatient and inpatient elective) |
Emergency presentation |
|
|
2006 |
52% |
14% |
24% |
|
2007 |
53% |
13% |
23% |
|
2008 |
54% |
13% |
23% |
|
2009 |
55% |
13% |
22% |
|
2010 |
57% |
12% |
22% |
|
2006-2010 |
54% |
13% |
23% |
Source: http://www.ncin.org.uk/publications/routes_to_diagnosis.
Notes: A consultant appointment is defined as the proportion diagnosed through the other outpatient and inpatient elective routes.
The emergency presentation route combines all types of emergency referral – around 6 out of 10 of these are from the A&E department and 3 out of 10 are emergency referrals made by a GP. More information can be found http://www.ncin.org.uk/view?rid=2174 with more detail on the breakdown of the emergency presentation route.
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