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Cancer: Health Services

Volume 486: debated on Thursday 15 January 2009

To ask the Secretary of State for Health what progress he has made towards establishing a National Cancer Intelligence Network; and what priorities for (a) routine analyses at a national level and (b) research have been determined. (247100)

The National Cancer Intelligence Network (NCIN) was launched in June 2008. Its aim is to promote efficient and effective data collection at each stage of the cancer journey, and to co-ordinate the analysis and publication of comparative national statistics on diagnosis, treatment and outcomes for all types of cancer.

The core objectives of the NCIN are:

promoting efficient and effective data collection throughout the cancer journey;

providing a common national repository for cancer datasets;

producing expert analyses, based on robust methodologies, to monitor patterns of cancer care;

exploiting information to drive improvements in standards of cancer care and clinical outcomes; and

enabling use of cancer information to support audit and research programmes.

Chapter 8 of the first annual report of the Cancer Reform Strategy, ‘Cancer Reform Strategy: Maintaining momentum, building for the future—first annual report’, published on 1 December 2008, contains information about the NCIN's progress and priorities. This document has already been placed in the Library.