2017 Cancer Prevalence Dashboard for London

As cancer incidence increases and survival improves, the number of people living with a cancer diagnosis is increasing. People living with cancer have 50% more contact with GPs 15 months after diagnosis than a population of similar age, sex and locality; 70% have another long-term condition.

To aid service providers' understanding of the cancer prevalent population by creating a publicly available visualisation tool that both describes patients' demographics and length of time lived with cancer, and compares counts of nationally registered cancer survivors to GP-maintained registers.

Using National Cancer Registration and Analysis Service (NCRAS) data, prevalence rates and counts were generated for London patients diagnosed 1995-2017 and alive 31 December 2017, overall and for lower-level geographies. GP-recorded Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) prevalence at Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) level was compared to NCRAS counts for the same period.

On 31 December 2017, 231 740 (2.6%) people were living with cancer in London; 33% were diagnosed 5-9 years prior and 31% were diagnosed ≥10 years prior. Prevalence was higher in women (P<0.001) and dramatically increased with age for London (P<0.001); >12% of >75 year olds were living with a cancer diagnosis in every lower-level geography. Completeness of GP QOF cancer registers against NCRAS prevalence counts ranged from 75-108% across CCGs.

Local understanding of the cancer prevalent population is needed, with a concerted effort to interpret large discrepancies between QOF and NCRAS registers, which may arise from differences in coding practice. Ensuring patients are identified in primary care is a first key step to managing cancer as a long-term condition.