Accessibility statement

Incorporating health inequality concerns into performance monitoring and economic evaluation – feasibility study in colorectal cancer

Shifts in health inequalities in relation to proportion of patients that die within 30 days of surgery

The main purpose of this project was to demonstrate that it is feasible to monitor the contribution of the NHS to tackling health inequality in one specific “pilot” area of colorectal cancer. 

The project laid the groundwork for future research on developing indicators of NHS performance in a range of cancer services. It has helped build inter-disciplinary collaborative links between economists at the University's Centre for Health Economics (CHE) and cancer epidemology / public health specialists in the Department of Health Sciences and the Leeds Institute for Molecular Medicine. It has also facilitated new inter-disciplinary and cross-institutional networking between health economists in CHE and public health experts, in particular, at UCL, University of Manchester, and University of Newcastle.

Prelimimary findings from this pilot study were presented as a poster at the National Cancer Intelligence Network Conference in Brighton in June 2013. The intention is to translate future findings into practice by developing "equity dashboards" for NHS decision makers in NHS England and Clinical Commissioning Groups, as part of the follow-on three year project on developing NHS equity performance indicators.

Principal Investigator

Dr Richard Cookson
Centre for Health Economics

Co-Investigators

Dr Steven Oliver
Health Sciences/HYMS