Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how the UK's (1) one year, and (2) five year cancer survival rates compare to (a) France, (b) Germany, (c) Belgium, and (d) Sweden, as reported in international comparisons such as Eurocare-5; and what are the 20 cancers by incidence for which the difference in survival rates between the UK and other countries is greatest.

The following table provides data on one-year and five-year relative survival by percentage for all cancer patients diagnosed 2000-07 in England, France, Germany, Belgium and Sweden; age-standardised.

One-year and five-year relative survival (%) for all cancer patients diagnosed 2000-2007 in England, France, Germany, Belgium and Sweden; age-standardised.

Tables showing one-year relative survival by percentage for all patients diagnosed with 20 cancers 2000-07 in England, France, Germany, Belgium and Sweden; age-standardised and five-year relative survival by percentage for all patients diagnosed with 20 cancers 2000-07 in England, France, Germany, Belgium and Sweden; age-standardised are attached due to the size of the data.

The 20 cancers listed in the attached table have the highest numbers of diagnoses in England and are ranked according to the number of diagnoses.

The source of this data is EUROCARE.

It should be noted that EUROCARE does not provide data for the United Kingdom as a whole. The tables contain information for England only.

EUROCARE provides full coverage of the populations of Sweden and England, but only provides 11.1-22.3% national coverage for France; 22.6% for Germany and 58.1% for Belgium.

Source: Rossi et al., The EUROCARE-5 study on cancer survival in Europe 1999-2007: Database, quality checks and statistical analytical methods European Journal of Cancer 2015; 51: 2104-19.