Despite bladder cancer being one of the most common cancers in the UK, it does not have a national clinical audit. ABC UK feels strongly that a national audit for bladder cancer could drive changes in clinical practice, provide evidence for best practice and, ultimately, improve patient outcomes.BCAP is an exciting new ABC UK bladder cancer research project.
This exciting new project launched in May 2026, and is running during 2027. BCAP is a major and significant data research project, part of ABC UK’s own commissioned research programme.
What are national cancer audits?
These national audits look at routinely collected national cancer data for England and Wales - that is, data that NHS Trusts will record about every patient’s diagnosis, treatment and outcomes.
The National Cancer Audit Collaborating Centre (NATCAN) oversees all UK national cancer audits – and there are currently 10 different cancer audits. Bladder cancer is not one of them.
Why are audits so important?
Evidence from the existing national cancer audits have clearly shown that these audits have a profound and positive impact on patient outcomes. They do this by:
National cancer audits have given a wider understanding of cancer treatments and helped to improve outcomes for patients … for those cancers which do have an audit.
How would a national audit benefit bladder cancer?
Existing cancer audits in England, such as for lung and prostate cancer, have resulted in definite improvements in referral pathways, practices and treatments - in the case of lung cancer leading to a significantly improved 5-year patient survival. This improvement arises from evidence provided by the findings and directly related to the implementation of the audits.
Bladder cancer is often diagnosed late, with a high rate of recurrence and mortality. We know there can be variance in the use of surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and other treatments by disease stage and also geographically – but we need the evidence to demonstrate this. There is also much we do not know.
More recent, and very welcome, developments in new treatments and ways of diagnosing bladder cancer also mean we urgently need to better understand the current situation, to be able to use any new treatments or tools in the most effective and timely manner.
Why has ABC UK launched BCAP?
We think BCAP will provide clinically valuable evidence to help address the gaps in knowledge about bladder cancer and patient pathways.
The findings from the anonymised data collected for BCAP will help provide evidence of best practice and of variations and give an up-to-date picture of bladder cancer, its diagnosis and treatment, and hopefully help address some of the challenges.
This kind of evidence will be valuable not only in helping to drive improvement, but also in demonstrating the feasibility and long-term value of a national bladder cancer audit.
Next Steps
Consultation with professional bodies and also key individual experts is a key part of this work and, like everything ABC UK does, patients are also involved and are feeding into BCAP throughout the process.
BCAP will run over a period of 18 months. We shall be producing reports as work is completed in phases, which will be publicised widely and used to raise the profile of bladder cancer. We shall be adding updates and further information to this page as the project progresses.
BCAP is an ABC UK research project – it is solely funded by Action Bladder Cancer UK.
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