More than 55,000 people are diagnosed with a new primary breast cancer every year in the UK. Enormous amounts of data on these patient are generated but these data are often collected in different silos.
What the national audit will do is to take advantage of these valuable data resources and bring the information all together for the first time, for a comprehensive analysis of all aspects of breast cancer care in England and Wales, whilst protecting patient anonymity.
That will allow us to analyse what is being done well, where it’s being done well, and what needs to be done much better.
Kieran Horgan, clinical co-lead for NAoPri, says the primary audit is a very exciting initiative and will work closely with the audit on metastatic (or secondary) breast cancer. It will build on the previous work done by the national audit of breast cancer in older patients (NABCOP). You can hear more thoughts from Kieran here
Kieran Horgan, Clinical Lead (Surgery), National Audit of Primary Breast Cancer
Since the 1st October 2022, NAoPri have been working on setting up the governance and infrastructure, and have established the project team and Audit Advisory Committee. A scoping exercise has been carried out to inform priorities for the audit and the returns are being analysed.
Similar to the NABCOP breast cancer audit, the NAoPri will wish to limit any additional demands on Trusts and there will be no audit-specific datasets. Instead the audit will use existing sources of patient data routinely collected by national organisations in England and Wales. A minimum dataset will be published in 2023, which hospitals can check are being completed and submitted.
The audit will examine the generality of breast cancer care and also focus on a number of important challenges. These include the care of younger patients, the diagnosis and treatment of patients with more aggressive triple negative cancers, and the needs of smaller groups of patients, including men.
The clinical leads on NAoPri are:
- Professor Kieran Horgan, Clinical Lead (Surgery)
- Professor David Dodwell, Clinical Lead (Oncology)
- Dr Mark Verrill, Clinical Lead (Oncology)
Contact NAoPri
Email: breastcanceraudits@rcseng.ac.uk
Twitter: @NAoPri_news