• Br J Gen Pract · Aug 2023

    National Cancer Diagnosis Audits for England 2018 versus 2014: a comparative analysis.

    • Ruth Swann, Sean McPhail, Gary A Abel, Jana Witt, Lorna Wills, Sara Hiom, Georgios Lyratzopoulos, and Greg Rubin.
    • Cancer Research UK, London.
    • Br J Gen Pract. 2023 Aug 1; 73 (733): e566e574e566-e574.

    BackgroundTimely diagnosis of cancer in patients who present with symptoms in primary care is a quality-improvement priority.AimTo examine possible changes to aspects of the diagnostic process, and its timeliness, before and after publication of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence's (2015) guidance on the referral of suspected cancer in primary care.Design And SettingComparison of findings from population-based clinical audits of cancer diagnosis in general practices in England for patients diagnosed in 2018 or 2014.MethodGPs in 1878 (2018) and 439 (2014) practices collected primary care information on the diagnostic pathway of cancer patients. Key measures including patient characteristics, place of presentation, number of pre-referral consultations, use of primary care investigations, and referral type were compared between the two audits by descriptive analysis and regression models.ResultsAmong 64 489 (2018) and 17 042 (2014) records of a new cancer diagnosis, the percentage of patients with same-day referral (denoted by a primary care interval of 0 days) was higher in 2018 (42.7% versus 37.7%) than in 2014, with similar improvements in median diagnostic interval (36 days versus 40 days). Compared with 2014, in 2018: fewer patients had ≥3 pre-referral consultations (18.8% versus 26.2%); use of primary care investigations increased (47.9% versus 45.4%); urgent cancer referrals increased (54.8% versus 51.8%); emergency referrals decreased (13.4% versus 16.5%); and recorded use of safety netting decreased (40.0% versus 44.4%).ConclusionIn the 5-year period, including the year when national guidelines were updated (that is, 2015), there were substantial improvements to the diagnostic process of patients who present to general practice in England with symptoms of a subsequently diagnosed cancer.© The Authors.

      Pubmed     Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…