The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the authority to reply.
Letter from Stephen Penneck, dated January 2010:
As Director General for Office for National Statistics, I have been asked to reply to your recent question asking how many cases of melanoma in (a) adults and (b) children have been reported in each primary care trust area since 1997. [313973]
The latest available figures for newly diagnosed cases of melanoma (incidence) are for the year 2007. Please note that these numbers may not be the same as the number of people diagnosed with cancer, because one person may be diagnosed with more than one cancer.
The tables attached provide the number of melanoma cases reported in (a) adults aged 16 years and over, for each primary care organisation in England, from 1997 to 2007 {Table 1), and (b) children aged under 16 years in England, from 1997 to 2007 {Table 2). A copy has been placed in the House of Commons Library.
Figures have not been provided for children aged under 16 years for each primary care organisation, as these data are judged to be too detailed to preserve anonymity in cancer registration statistics.