General practice performance in referral for suspected cancer: influence of number of cases and case-mix on publicly reported data.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Publicly available data show variation in GPs' use of urgent suspected cancer (USC) referral pathways. We investigated whether this could be due to small numbers of cancer cases and random case-mix, rather than due to true variation in performance.

Methods

We analysed individual GP practice USC referral detection rates (proportion of the practice's cancer cases that are detected via USC) and conversion rates (proportion of the practice's USC referrals that prove to be cancer) in routinely collected data from GP practices in all of England (over 4 years) and northeast Scotland (over 7 years). We explored the effect of pooling data. We then modelled the effects of adding random case-mix to practice variation.

Results

Correlations between practice detection ra

SUBMITTER: Murchie P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4647257 | biostudies-literature | 2015 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature