Mortality: cancer

Indicator type

Network / system level indicator. The indicator would be appropriate to understand and report on the performance of networks or systems of providers.

Rationale

The indicator aims to prevent premature mortality with the aim of lowering numbers to improve health outcomes. Approximately 23% of cancer deaths thought to be amenable to prevention as a result of health care timeliness and effectiveness.

Source guidance

This indicator is an overarching outcome, supported by a number of NICE guidelines, and national screening programme guidelines:

Specification

Numerator: Number of deaths for which cancer is given as the underlying cause of death, based on the original cause recorded on the death certificate.

Denominator: Mid-year population estimates.

Calculation: Directly age-standardised rate.

Definitions: Cancer uses codes ICD10 C00 to C97. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) publishes the full ICD10 classification available for the NOMIS explorable dataset.

Exclusions: None.

Data source: Primary Care Mortality Database (PCMD) / ONS Mortality data; ONS annual mid-year population estimates.

Expected population size: ONS (2024)'s Estimates of the population for the UK, England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, mid-2023 edition, MYE1, show that for England (2023), 91% (52,380,101 divided by 57,690,323) of people in England were aged under 75: 9,080 per 10,000 patients served by a network. There is no minimum number of patients required for network level indicators. However, consideration should be given to whether the majority of results would require suppression because of small numbers.

ISBN: 978-1-4731-6822-0