Cancer Waiting-Times Data
2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009
62-day urgent referral to treatment, 31-day diagnosis to treatment for breast cancer and 31-day urgent referral to treatment for acute leukaemia
Data for these targets are collected through cancer audit in each NHS Board and validated by ISD. Data for the 62-day target are published quarterly and are available for 9 main cancer types: breast, colorectal, head and neck, lung, lymphoma, melanoma, ovarian, upper GI, and urology. Data for the 31-day breast cancer and acute leukaemia targets are published annually. Data tables can be access via the links above. See also Using data for comparison.
31-day urgent referral to treatment for Paediatric cancer
There is a target of 31-days from urgent referral to the start of treatment for any cancer patient 16 years old or under at the time of their diagnosis. Data against this target is collected directly from the three cancer networks and is published annually at network level only as these are relatively rare occurrences. Data tables can be access via the links above.
Exclusion Categories
Patients can be excluded from performance calculations under six different exclusion criteria:
- Died before treatment
- Refused all treatment
- Patient-induced non-clinical delay - patients who did not or could not attend an appointment due to personal circumstances and the resultant delay is a week or more
- Co-morbidities - patients who did not or could not attend an appointment due to medical reasons and the resultant delay is a week or more
- Initial referral to other specialty (from July-September 2006) - patients who are urgently referred to one service with a range of symptoms that are not particularly suggestive of cancer, have a variety of inconclusive investigations and are subsequently referred to another service where a series of further investigations are carried out that leads to a diagnosis of cancer
- Clinical reasons (from July-September 2006) - where patients breach the target because medically they require a complex series of investigations (as opposed to the patient having gone through a circuitous pathway)