Route to Cancer Diagnosis Quality Performance Improvement Report

People diagnosed with cancer within 30-days of an emergency or unplanned hospital admission

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As part of Te Aho o Kahu's monitoring and Quality Improvement Programme we have released a report looking into the number of people diagnosed with cancer within 30-days of an emergency or acute (unplanned) hospital admission by districts around the motu | country. When a person develops cancer, it is important this is diagnosed as early possible, so they are able to receive treatment and support to achieve the best health outcomes possible. Ideally, they would receive their diagnosis, through an established referral pathway, starting in primary and community care (such as a GP and screening programmes). They would also be supported by connected, culturally responsive secondary health services, that are trusted by the person and their whānau.

What the report tells us

Patients who are diagnosed following an emergency or unplanned hospital admission often present with severe symptoms, indicating an advanced stage of cancer resulting in poorer outcomes. Our analysis also shows:  

New Zealand experiences a high rate of being diagnosed with cancer after an emergency or unplanned admission - 23.9 percent across 22 different types of cancer, with some being much lower (for example, breast cancer) and others, (for example lung cancer and pancreatic cancer) being much higher
that Māori are more likely to be diagnosed following an emergency admission than people of other ethnicities in almost all districts
that certain districts consistently perform better than others (i.e., lower rates of diagnosis following unplanned admission), which may point to stronger connections between primary and secondary care services and/or more effective primary care/community diagnostics models that could be scaled and used in other parts of the country.

How we will use this data

We will share the report findings with Health New Zealand Te Whatu Ora. community and primary health care providers and other key agencies, to identify areas where we can improve cancer detection and diagnosis processes, and reduce cancer diagnoses via emergency admission across Aotearoa New Zealand.

How we developed the report

We followed the same methodology as the International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership study published in The Lancet Oncology in 2022 (McPhail et al 2022). The study investigated 8 cancer types - oesophageal, stomach, colon, rectal, liver, pancreatic, lung and ovarian - across 14 jurisdictions in Australia, Canada, Denmark, New Zealand, Norway and the United Kingdom. It found that Aotearoa had the highest rates of emergency admission prior to diagnosis for all of these cancers except liver cancer, for which we had the third highest rate.

You can read the full and summary reports below.