§ Gregory BarkerTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what proportion of cancer patients are comorbid; and(a) how many and (b) what proportion of cancer patients there were in each year since 1998. [78950]
§ Ms BlearsThe Department does not centrally hold information on co-morbidity of cancer patients. In some instances this information will be held locally for research and/or public health purposes though it is not generally published.
§ Gregory BarkerTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what instruments have been developed to classify different comorbid diseases; and whether a comorbidity index is a cancer registry requirement. [78951]
§ Ms BlearsThere are several methods of monitoring co-morbidity currently available: these include the Kaplan-Feinstein Index, the Cumulative Illness Rating Scale (CIRS) and the Adult Comorbidity Evaluation (ACE 27). However, not all methodologies are appropriate to all tumour types.
532WDue to the complexities of applying a co-morbidity standard to all cancers there are no current plans to incorporate a co-morbidity index into registry datasets.
§ Gregory BarkerTo ask the Secretary of State for Health if he will list the data reporting standards for cancer, broken down by stage. [78949]
§ Ms BlearsCollected information on cancer services is restricted to aggregate returns to measure performance against the waiting times targets in the NHS Cancer Plan and data collected to monitor National Health Service screening services. The Department does not collect data on cancer patients broken down by stage of disease.
Some information on stage is collected by cancer registries but not for all cancer types, although coverage for this data is incomplete and as such it is not therefore published.