Overview

Colorectal (bowel) cancer is a major public health problem. Each year in the UK over 41,000 people are diagnosed with the disease and 16,000 die from it. Despite huge investment in care and research there remains major variation in diagnosis, treatment and outcome and survival rates in the UK lag behind many comparable countries.  Data and evidence are needed to help drive improvements in care.

There are existing datasets covering all aspects of care, which could be used to improve outcomes. Access for researchers to link and exploit these datasets is, however, often limited. The UK Colorectal Cancer Intelligence Hub has been set up to address the challenges involved in using patient data by creating a single colorectal research data system, known as the COloRECTal cancer data Repository (CORECT-R), that contains a huge array of data from across the cancer pathway. The Hub also supports efficient, but secure, access for researchers into this environment to drive the production of intelligence that will improve colorectal cancer outcomes.

Led by Professor Eva Morris, the UK Colorectal Cancer Intelligence Hub is a five-year programme of work funded by Cancer Research UK.

The UK Colorectal Cancer Intelligence Hub is a highly collaborative programme involving the University of Oxford, the University of Leeds, the University of Edinburgh, the Bowel Cancer Intelligence UK Patient-Public Group, Health Data Insight and many others.