Cancer diagnosis and deaths 2019 to 2023

FOI-2024-1699

You asked

Can you please show me clearly, so the data rather than links where to find the data if possible please:

1) Total number of new cancer diagnoses 2019 - 2023 (whatever the latest data you can provide is)

2) The total number of deaths from all cancers 2019 - 2023

3) The average time from diagnosis to death for those that have died in each calendar year 2019 - 2023

4) The top 5 deadliest cancers by total deaths from each type 2019 - 23

5) The top 5 deadliest by % of those diagnosed who die 2019 - 2023

We said

Thank you for your request.

Cancer diagnoses

We are no longer responsible for the production of statistics pertaining to new cancer diagnoses in the period specified. The latest ONS published statistics on newly diagnosed cases relate to the year 2017.

NHS England are now responsible for publishing these statistics and their latest publication provides statistics up to the year 2021. Public Health Scotland are responsible for producing statistics on newly diagnosed cases of cancer in Scotland, and the latest publication provides estimates up to December 2021. Public Health Wales are responsible for producing statistics on newly diagnosed cases of cancer and you can access their latest statistics using their cancer reporting tool. The Northern Ireland Cancer Registry are responsible for publishing statistics on newly diagnosed cases of cancer in Northern Ireland. Their latest publication covers the years 1990 to 2021.

Cancer mortality

We hold mortality data for England and Wales. For Scotland and Northern Ireland data you will need to contact National Records of Scotland and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Centre, respectively. 

Data on deaths registered up to 2022 can be accessed using NOMIS. Please see the associated download, which provides a file that quantifies the number of deaths with an underlying cause of cancer (International Classification of Diseases 10th revision codes C00 to D48) in England and Wales.

The number of deaths from all causes and with an underlying cause of cancer by type are available using NOMIS for the years 2019 through 2022, and the five cancer types with the highest proportion of total deaths can be derived.

Data pertaining to death registrations for the year 2023 have yet to be finalised. Data on deaths with an underlying cause of cancer registered in 2023 will be published by ONS later in 2024. 

If you wish to obtain provisional information on deaths registered with an underlying cause of cancer in 2023 along with other special extracts and tabulations of mortality data for England and Wales are available to order, subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs in line with our Charging Policy.

Such enquiries can be made to: Health.Data@ons.gov.uk.

Average time from diagnosis to death

We do not hold data on the average time from cancer diagnosis to death for those that have died in each calendar year 2019 to 2023. The National Cancer Registration and Analysis Service may be better placed to assist.

They would also be better placed to answer your query about the five deadliest in terms of lowest survival time from diagnosis to death.