Table 5.
Avoidable delays (n = 15 369)a
| Avoidable delay,bn (%) | Not known, n | |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 3380 (22.0) | 1673 |
|
| ||
| Male | 1839 (24.0) | 897 |
|
| ||
| Female | 1541 (20.0) | 776 |
|
| ||
| Age group, years | ||
| 0–24 | 39 (22.9) | 28 |
| 25–49 | 338 (21.6) | 140 |
| 50–64 | 766 (20.3) | 379 |
| 65–74 | 937 (21.2) | 448 |
| 75–84 | 931 (24.6) | 436 |
| ≥85 | 369 (22.2) | 242 |
|
| ||
| Cancer site | ||
| Bladder | 109 (24.4) | 43 |
| Brain | 38 (16.9) | 40 |
| Breast | 178 (6.9) | 146 |
| Cancer of unknown primary | 95 (28.3) | 64 |
| Colon | 339 (28.7) | 139 |
| Endometrial | 92 (24.2) | 20 |
| Leukaemia | 60 (14.7) | 62 |
| Liver | 48 (19.5) | 26 |
| Lung | 447 (24.0) | 267 |
| Lymphoma | 171 (26.3) | 90 |
| Melanoma | 151 (18.9) | 38 |
| Multiple myeloma | 63 (27.3) | 41 |
| Oesophageal | 112 (27.2) | 35 |
| Oral/oropharyngeal | 63 (28.5) | 47 |
| Other | 387 (28.2) | 209 |
| Ovarian | 89 (29.6) | 31 |
| Pancreatic | 129 (31.6) | 52 |
| Prostate | 429 (22.0) | 183 |
| Rectal | 177 (29.2) | 41 |
| Renal | 110 (22.2) | 61 |
| Stomach | 93 (34.4) | 38 |
If there was a perceived avoidable delay in the patient receiving their diagnosis, the following questions gathered information about the nature of that delay, considering three key dimensions: where it occurred, the stage of the diagnostic process during which it occurred, and to whom or what factor it was attributable. Delay was defined as an unnecessary prolongation of the time to reach a diagnosis that has potentially adverse consequences on outcomes.
Screening and not applicable cases are excluded from the avoidable delay category. Percentage values relate to observations with non-missing information (that is, excluding ‘not-known’). This is to prevent under-reporting of the proportion of the known categories by assuming that the not known cases are missing at random and therefore evenly distributed among the known groups.