FOI2026/1909

I am writing to request information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 about prostate specific antigen testing and prostate cancer diagnosis in England.

Please provide the following, for the calendar years: 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, and 2026 to date, unless stated otherwise.

• The number of PSA tests requested in primary care in each year, broken down by age band and by region.
• The number and percentage of prostate cancer diagnoses at each stage, one to four, in each year, by region.
• The number of prostate cancers first identified through an emergency presentation, for example via A&E, in each year.
• The number of men diagnosed with prostate cancer through the urgent suspected cancer referral route in each year.
• The average treatment cost per patient for prostate cancer, broken down by stage at diagnosis, for each year where this is held.
• The total annual NHS spend on prostate cancer treatment in each year.
• The number of radical prostatectomies, including robot assisted procedures, and the number of radical radiotherapy courses carried out in each year, with the unit cost or tariff applied to each where held.

The median and 90th percentile number of days from GP referral to first urology outpatient appointment, in each year, by trust or region for:

• The median number of days from first GP appointment to prostate MRI, and from MRI to biopsy, in each year.
• The number of men breaching the 28-day faster diagnosis standard, and the number breaching the 62-day referral to treatment standard, for suspected prostate cancer in each year.

Where held, please break each figure down by age band (18 to 25, 26 to 34, 35 to 44, 45 to 54, 55 to 64, 65 to 74, and 75 and over), by ethnicity, and by index of multiple deprivation decile. If any breakdown is not recorded, please say so.

Please supply the data as a spreadsheet, Excel or CSV, rather than as a PDF. If any part of this request would exceed the cost limit, please treat each numbered question as a separate request, tell me which part is affected, and advise how it could be narrowed, in line with the duty to assist under section 16 of the Act.

The Freedom of Information Act allows Public Authorities to decline to answer FOI requests when we estimate it would cost us more than £450 (equivalent to 18 hours, calculated at £25 per hour) to identify, locate, extract, and then provide the information that has been asked for.

Due to the volume and complexity of the data involved, it would require a disproportionate amount of time and resources to locate extract and collate the data, and therefore, on this occasion it is with regret NHS GM are not able to process this section of your request further.

Please see table below which provides a breakdown of the time estimation for each question. To assist with your request, links to websites for some of the questions have been included in the table below:

On this basis, section 12(1) has been applied, because this would exceed the appropriate limit prescribed in the act.

In accordance with our duty under Section 16 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to provide reasonable advice and assistance, if you are able to narrow the scope of your request, we may be able to respond to it within the appropriate cost limit.

To further assist with your enquiry, please see below link to NHS England website with information about how to make a Freedom of Information request to NHS England who may hold this information.