Table 1. The eight routes used to categorise all tumours.

Diagnosis route	Description	Priority	Relevant codes
Screen-Detected	Detected via the breast, cervical or bowel screening programmes.	1	Outpatient source of referral: 17
TWW	Urgent GP Referral with a suspicion of cancer.	2 or 4a	CWT priority type 1 (to December 2008) CWT priority type 3 (from January 2009)
Emergency Presentation	An emergency route via A&E, emergency GP Referral, emergency transfer, emergency consultant outpatient referralb, emergency admission or attendance.	3	IP method of admission: 21, 22, 23 and 28 OP source of referral: 1, 4 and 10
GP Referral	Routine and urgent referrals where the patient was not referred under the TWW referral route.	5	Outpatient source of referral: 3 and 12
Inpatient Elective	Where no earlier admission can be found before admission from a waiting list, booked or planned.	5	IP method of admission: 31, 32, 82, 83, 84 and 89
Other Outpatient	An elective route starting with an outpatient appointment: either self-referral, consultant to consultant, other or unknown referral.	5	OP source of referral: 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 92, 93, 97 and 99
DCO	No data available from Inpatient or Outpatient HES, CWT, Screening and with a death certificate diagnosis flagged by the registry in the NCDR.	5	NA
Unknown	No data available from Inpatient or Outpatient HES, CWT, Screening.	5	NA

Abbreviations: A&E=Accident and Emergency; CWT=Cancer Waiting Times; DCO=Death Certificate Only; GP=general practitioner; HES=Hospital Episode Statistics; IP=Inpatient; NA=not applicable; NCDR=National Cancer Data Repository; OP=Outpatient; TWW=Two-Week Wait.

The priority given to each route and relevant codes from each data source are shown.

^aIf a TWW record exists, and HES indicates an Emergency route, the TWW takes priority if the emergency admission date is greater than 28 days before the decision to treat date.

^bOnly if no previous Outpatient HES data are available for this patient.