Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of (1) reports of registration delays in multiple national cancer audit "State of the Nation" reports produced within the National Cancer Audit Collaborating Centre, (2) the impact of such delays on cancer audits and cancer research, and (3) how such delays compare with pre-pandemic levels; and what steps they are taking to return cancer registration to a timely and accurate state.

Cancer incidence is continuing to rise, and cancer cases are becoming more complex to register as genomics plays a rapidly growing role. NHS England continues to manage the balance between timeliness, completeness and quality in cancer registration data.

The National Cancer Audit Collaborating Centre (NATCAN) audits use data from the National Cancer Registration Dataset (NCRD) for England, which is considered the ‘gold standard’ because it draws data from various sources.

The National Disease Registration Service (NDRS) is not aware of delays in relation to NDRS data releases to NATCAN. Recommendations from the audit have informed the development of the recently published National Cancer Plan. The plan includes the ambition to increase data transparency on the quality of care and improve performance to drive up standards across the country and reduce regional variation on outcomes.

We are committed to improve the quality and granularity of cancer data to support better outcomes for cancer patients.