§ Mr. DafisTo ask the Secretary of State for Wales when he proposes to publish the statistics of the Wales Cancer Registry for the years 1988 to 1993.
§ Mr. Gwilym JonesCancer registration data from the Wales Cancer Registry for 1988 have been published in "Health and Personal Social Services Statistics for 'Wales, No. 19, 1992", available in the Library of the House. Data for 1989 will be published in the next edition at the end of April. More detailed information relating to the period 1984–89 will be made available in a report from the Wales Cancer Registry, "Cancer Registration in Wales, 1984–89", due to be published during the summer of 1994.
Cancer registration is complex, relying in the main on data submitted by hospitals, regional cancer registries in England and the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys. New information on patients may be received some time after the actual incidence of cancer. Extensive validation is required in order, for example, to eliminate duplicates. The policy of the Wales Cancer Registry is to make available and publish data for a particular year when it is believed that future revisions will be small.