Information Services Division: Scotland

Macmillan-ISD Scottish Cancer Pathways

NHS Scotland’s Information Services Division (ISD) of Public Health & Intelligence Scotland brings together specialists to translate information into evidence for action to protect and improve the health of the people of Scotland. Intelligence is gathered from a broad range of sources to provide national level advice and leadership to protect the health of the people of Scotland. They develop patient level activity data into information and intelligence to support the delivery and planning of health and social care services.

Macmillan Cancer Support and ISD are working in partnership to use data to improve the understanding of the impact and cost of cancer and its treatment, and aim to:

• Deliver insightful analysis of Scotland cancer data to support improved design, testing and implementation of better models of care
• Identify gaps and opportunities to deliver world class data collection and analysis for improved outcomes for people living with and beyond cancer
• Participate in similar initiatives and partnerships in the other nations by providing Scotland-specific analysis for UK-wide use of evidence.

Macmillan-ISD workplan

The objectives of the current workplan are to:

• Produce the externally available Local Cancer Intelligence (LCI) tool, allowing data to be accessed at the national, network, health board and local authority level. It will provide data on prevalence, incidence, mortality, patient experience, and deprivation.
• Develop a survivorship outcome framework, Scottish Routes from Diagnosis [PDF], that maps patient pathway experiences, describes survivorship morbidity and health outcomes, and identifies how patient characteristics influence the diversity of outcomes within and between cancer sites.
• Work with health boards to explore drivers in survival variation across cancer sites, and potentially produce profiles that facilitate collaborative learning.
• Investigate cancer outcomes, experiences, and pathways in remote and rural areas across Scotland using the urban / rural index and travel times.

If you have an interest in finding out more about the work plan or are working in a related area and would like to share your insights, please do get in touch with Cheryl Denny, Principal Information Analyst, ISD, Judith Mabelis, Evidence Officer for Scotland, or Dr Kelly Shiell-Davis, Macmillan Senior Evidence Officer.

Deprivation and cancer survival in Scotland

Survival analysis by deprivation, sex and cancer site were produced for the 20 most common cancers in Scotland (2013 incidence).

Multivariate analysis was carried out where cancer types demonstrated statistically significant variation between the most deprived and least deprived for one-year survival and five-year survival.

The research below sheds light on the drivers of variation, such as:

• stage at diagnosis
• access and use of screening programmes
• co-morbidities.