The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the authority to reply.
Letter from Karen Dunnell, dated January 2009:
As National Statistician, I have been asked to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question asking how many people (a) contracted skin cancer and (b) died from melanoma in the latest period for which information is available. (247085)
The latest available figures for newly diagnosed cases of cancer (incidence) are for the year 2006 while the latest figures for deaths are for the year 2007.
Table 1 below provides the number of newly diagnosed cases of malignant melanoma of skin for 2006 and the number of deaths from malignant melanoma of skin for 2007.
Malignant melanoma of skin Cases diagnosed in 2006 8,658 Number of deaths in 2007 1,710 1 Malignant melanoma of skin is coded to C43 in the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10). Source: Office for National Statistics