Upper GI cancer
Patients diagnosed in the three years from January 2016 to December 2018

About this release

This release by Information Services Division (ISD), highlights the publication of the National Upper Gastro-Intestinal (GI) Cancer Quality Performance Indicators in the Cancer QPIs dashboard, currently held within Discovery. Performance against a range of indicators developed by Upper GI cancer specialists is reported. The information collected from clinical audits provides an opportunity to review NHSScotland performance against these measures.

Based on user engagement and stakeholder feedback, ISD will not be producing a written report or providing data tables for this publication. The indicators can be viewed via the Discovery dashboard or in already published regional reports – see the further information section.

Main points

• There were 1,323 people diagnosed with Upper GI cancer in Scotland in 2018. This is a slight decrease on previous years (1,443 diagnosed in 2017 and 1,340 in 2016).
• The threshold for the mortality rate 30 days following surgery is to be below 5%. Overall in Scotland, in each of the three years this was achieved. In 2018, the percentage of patients who died within 30 days of surgery was 2.5% for oesophageal cancer. No patients died within 30 days of surgery for gastric cancer in 2018.

Background

National cancer quality performance indicators have been developed to support continuous quality improvement in cancer care. NHS Boards are required to report these indicators against a clinically agreed indicator specific target as part of the mandatory national cancer quality programme. They have been developed collaboratively by the North Cancer Alliance (external website), South East Scotland Cancer Network (external website), West of Scotland Cancer Network (external website) and Healthcare Improvement Scotland (external website) and the Information Services Division.

Further information

Access

• To obtain access to the Cancer QPIs dashboard, please follow the link to the User Access System (external website) and select Discovery. You can also request access to the Scottish Cancer Registration and Intelligence Service (SCRIS) dashboard at the same time. Please note that the Cancer QPIs will be relocated within the SCRIS dashboard sometime during the next few months, thus bringing all the cancer data together in the one place.

Reports

For published regional reports please refer to the following links.

• West of Scotland Cancer Network (external website)
• South East Scotland Cancer Network (external website)
• North Cancer Alliance (external website)

Upper GI Cancer Indicators

Documents detailing the Upper GI cancer (external website) indicators are available from Healthcare Improvement Scotland.

Cancer Quality Performance Indicators

• Information Services Division: Cancer Quality Performance Indicators
• For more information on the National Cancer Quality Programme - Scottish Government letter CEL 06 2012 (external website).