Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the effect of ranking general practitioners by their record of cancer referrals on referral rates, or the assessment of doctors.

Cancer survival rates in England are some of the worst in Europe. Generally, the earlier a cancer is diagnosed, the greater the chance of survival. We know that some patients visit their general practitioner (GP) with symptoms of cancer several times before they are referred on for investigation, and so we are looking at a range of ways to increase early referral of patients with the relevant symptoms.

Between 2006 and 2010, 27% of cancers were diagnosed through urgent referrals for suspected cancer by general practice and 23% of cancers were diagnosed through emergency presentations. We know this rate varies considerably across the country and for different cancers. We also know that rates for referrals for diagnostic tests which can be important in detecting cancer vary. The Government is looking at ways in which it can use its transparency agenda to improve consistency and drive up cancer survival rates across the system.

Public Health England publishes annual cancer profiles for all GP practices in England. These profiles bring together a range of process and outcomes information relevant to cancer in primary care. They provide comparative information for benchmarking variation at a general practice level, including use of the urgent suspected cancer pathway. The profiles are available at

www.ncin.org.uk/cancer_information_tools/profiles/gp_profiles.