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Cancer waiting times statistics
19/08/2008
Scotland's Chief Statistician today published Cancer Waiting-Times Statistics for January-March 2008. The publication includes the number of cancer patients urgently referred for each of the geographic health boards and the proportion of these treated within 62 days of referral, broken down by tumour site.
The main findings are:
- 94.1 per cent of reported urgently referred patients diagnosed with cancer in January-March 2008 began treatment within 62 days of their referral
- In October-December 2007 93.6 per cent of reported urgently referred cancer patients began treatment within 62 days of referral
- The cancer types with the highest and lowest fractions of patients starting treatment within 62 days of urgent referral were ovarian (100 per cent) and lymphoma (89.4 per cent) respectively
- The mainland Health Boards with the highest and lowest fractions of patients starting treatment within 62 days of urgent referral were NHS Highland (96.0 per cent) and NHS Grampian (92.2 per cent) respectively
- 83.2 per cent of patients diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007 began treatment within 31 days of diagnosis
- 99 per cent of patients diagnosed with acute leukaemia in 2007 began treatment within 31 days of urgent referral
- 100 per cent of children diagnosed with cancer in 2007 began treatment within 31 days of urgent referral
Contextually it is also interesting to note that the latest weekly performance management information indicates that Scotland-level performance for 62-day urgent cancer referral-to-treatment for April-June 2008 is 95.2 per cent. These are unvalidated figures and experience suggests that there has been up to +/- 3 percentage point difference between the weekly performance management information and official quarterly cancer waiting times statistics. The official quarterly cancer waiting times statistics for April-June 2008 are due to be published in November 2008.
Official statistics are produced by professionally independent statistical staff.