Background
Prostate cancer is the most common solid cancer in men with over 50,000 new cases diagnosed each year in the UK and its incidence is increasing. There are concerns about over-diagnosis and over-treatment in men with low-risk disease, while men with locally advanced or high-risk disease may not be getting the radical treatments that they need.
The NPCA is a national clinical audit commissioned by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) in response to the need for better information about the quality of services and care provided to patients with prostate cancer in England and Wales.
The audit is undertaken at the Clinical Effectiveness Unit (CEU) of the Royal College of Surgeons, which has an excellent track record of producing high quality national cancer audits in gastro-oesophageal, bowel and breast cancers. The audit joined the National Cancer Audit Collaborating Centre (NATCAN) on 1st July 2023, which brings together existing cancer audits (gastro-oesophageal and bowel) with newly commissioned audits in kidney, ovarian, pancreatic, primary and metastatic breast and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Uro-oncology leadership is provided by Professor Noel Clarke, Consultant Urologist, representing the British Association of Urological Surgeons (BAUS) and Dr Alison Tree, Consultant Clinical Oncologist, representing the British Uro-Oncology Group (BUG) who replaced Professor Ajay Aggarwal, Consultant Clinical Oncologist, in February 2024.
The methodology and program sequence has been put in place by Professor Jan van de Meulen, who has been involved in the synthesis of large scale national cancer audits and is based at the CEU and at The London School of Hygiene and Tropical medicine.