Cancer diagnosis data should be included in the Commissioning Outcomes Framework if CCGs are to be sufficiently held to account, it is claimed.
Cancer diagnosis data should be included in the Commissioning Outcomes Framework if CCGs are to be sufficiently held to account, it is claimed.
The All Party Parliamentary Group on Cancer's report, Effective Cancer Commissioning in the NHS, calls for one and five-year cancer survival indicators to be included in the NHS Outcomes Framework.
It is claimed such "robust" local measures will encourage patients to see their GP sooner and speed up the GP referrals.
It is also hoped they will incentivise CCGs to make year-on-year improvements to early cancer diagnosis.
Failing to include such indicators may mean the government risks achieving its goal of saving 5,000 lives a year by 2014 – bringing England up to the European average.
"We need to drive up improvements [in cancer survival] across the board and so the NHS Outcomes Framework should be broadened to include all cancers," said John Baron, APPEC Chairman.
"It is crucial that CCGs are held to account for their performance to ensure better outcomes and survival rates are delivered."
The APPEC report also asks the government to boraden the NHS Outcomes Framework to include targets for every type of cancer, not just breast, lung and colorectal cancer.
