The N. Ireland Cancer Registry (NICR), with oversight from Queen’s University Belfast and funding from the Public Health Agency, is responsible for producing official cancer statistics for Northern Ireland.
The NICR collates and analyses information on cancer and the services patients receive and, based on this, is able to report cancer incidence, mortality, prevalence, survival and staging. One of its key outputs is evidence to help inform decision making around cancer services.
Macmillan-N. Ireland Cancer Registry partnership
Macmillan is working with the NICR to use data to improve the understanding of the impact and costs of cancer and its treatment. This is across the whole of the cancer journey, including the wider community and health and social care services in Northern Ireland.
The partnership and its objectives align closely with Macmillan’s established work with the National Cancer Registry Analytical Service (NCRAS) but objectives specific to Northern Ireland will include:
- Profiling Transforming Cancer Follow Up patients assigned to Self-Directed Aftercare by linking them to NICR datasets to determine how well they represent the whole cancer patient population
- Collecting information to report on breast cancer recurrences and to work towards a method for routinely collecting and reporting recurrence data electronically
- Profiling patients seen by Northern Ireland’s regional Acute Oncology (AO) service to identify common characteristics of AO patients and to better understand their cancer pathway before and after their experience with AO.
Download the April 2018 Macmillan and Northern Ireland Cancer Registry Analytical Partnership briefing [PDF].
Northern Ireland GP Federation Cancer Profiles
In early 2018, the NICR completed work to profile and compare the cancer populations in each of Northern Ireland’s GP Federations. Based on this analysis, the NICR produced a detailed factsheet on each GP Federation, including data on incidence, prevalence, age and stage at diagnosis.
Macmillan also produced a series of one-page cancer profiles highlighting, for each GP Federation, the key features of its cancer population.