NHS Cancer Patients: Waiting Lists (Hansard, 14 October 1997)

§ Baroness Jay of Paddington

Information collected centrally on patients currently on a waiting list at hospitals in England is specialty based and does not separately identify patients by their prospective diagnosis. Information on patients actually admitted is available by diagnosis and in 1994–95, the latest year for which data are available in England, 364,000 people with a diagnosis of cancer were admitted for surgical or non-surgical treatment from a waiting list. Information on patients currently on a waiting list at hospitals in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is collected on the same basis as in England. The latest information on admissions available for Wales is for 1995–96 and shows that during that year 33,000 patients with a diagnosis of cancer were admitted to Welsh hospitals from waiting lists. The latest information for Northern Ireland is also for 1995–96. There, 15,000 patients with a diagnosis of cancer were admitted from a waiting list during that year. Comparable information for Scotland is not available.