Summary

The care provided for patients with lung cancer is described in the first report from new national data, published by The Information Centre for health and social care (The IC) in conjunction with the Royal College of Physicians on behalf of The Healthcare Commission.

The lung cancer audit seeks to determine the extent to which the differences in survival can be explained by regional variations in:

• configuration of services
• management policies (including diagnosis, staging and treatment)
• the actual standards of specialist treatments (e.g. the availability of specialist thoracic surgeons and oncologists)
• casemix factors such as: stage at presentation; social deprivation (and its possible association with late presentation to medical care), co-morbidity and performance status.

The first year of the audit covers data collected on the treatment of over 23,000 patients in 2005. Data is collected from 15 out of 34 English Cancer Networks and all 12 acute NHS trusts Wales. This represents 77 per cent of eligible hospitals submitting data, though more effort is needed to continue to recruit all trusts by the end of 2006.

Further printed copies can be ordered by contacting the Lung Cancer helpdesk on 0845 300 6016, or by emailing: enquiries@ic.nhs.uk .