Written question WQ82786

Welsh Cancer Intelligence and Surveillance Unit (WCISU) at Public Health Wales (PHW) is responsible for publishing official data on cancer incidence and this can be found at: Welsh Cancer Intelligence and Surveillance unit (WCISU) - Public Health Wales (nhs.wales)

The data on cancer diagnoses published by WCISU cover the time period up to 2018.

Using more recent NHS management information, it is estimated that there could have been approximately 4,000 more patients that would have been diagnosed between April 2020 and March 2021 if the pandemic did not occur. However, not all patients with a missed diagnosis will still require treatment.

Welsh Government publishes timely official statistics on the number of patients who started their first definitive cancer treatment, every month at: Monthly cancer data (gov.wales).

This data (summarised in Table 1) shows that 15,721 patients started their first definitive cancer treatment between April 2020 and March 2021. This is 1,848 patients fewer than in the previous year.

Table 1: Number of patients starting their first definitive cancer treatment

Apr 20 –

Mar 21

Apr 19 –

Mar 20

Apr 18 –

Mar 19

Apr 17 –

Mar 18

Apr 16 –

Mar 17

15,721

17,569

17,591

16,697

17,201