Lord Freyberg – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Freyberg on 2015-11-30.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many NHS England Trusts provide prostate surgery; how many of those track their incontinence rates after prostate surgery; of those hospitals that track outcomes, what is the average rate of post-surgical incontinence; what assessment they have made of whether survey-based research could be used to estimate the incontinence rate of those hospitals that do not track their outcomes; and if so, what is their estimate of the incontinence rate in those hospitals.
Lord Prior of Brampton
The National Prostate Cancer Audit 2014 found that 61 National Health Service trusts in England currently carry out radical prostatectomy, although others may carry out other surgical procedures. Estimates are not collected centrally of the number of patients who experience post-surgical incontinence.
According to Quality of Life of Cancer Survivors in England: Report on a pilot survey using Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMS), published by the Department and the NHS in 2012, 44% of prostate cancer patients reported some urinary leakage and this was associated with lower quality of life scores. A copy of the report is attached.
Prostate Cancer UK and the Movember Foundation are currently funding a PROMS programme, Life After Prostate Cancer Diagnosis, to assess for the first time the long-term quality of life of prostate cancer survivors, including the proportion who suffer from incontinence and other treatment related consequences.
