Dr Matthew Ridd, GP and NIHR Clinical Lecturer at the Academic Unit of Primary Health Care, has been awarded a grant from Cancer Research UK to undertake a study into continuity of patient care and GP diagnosis of cancer.

In collaboration with Professor Willie Hamilton at the University of Exeter, Dr Ridd and coapplicants Professor Chris Salisbury and Dr Alan Montgomery will be using the General Practice Research Database to investigate whether seeing the same doctor promotes the earlier diagnosis of breast, lung and/or colorectal cancer in adults.

Dr Ridd said: "Continuity of care is a core value in general practice yet little is known about how it affects the symptoms that patients present and/or how GPs act on them.  This is an exciting opportunity to build on Professor Hamilton's previous work on cancer diagnosis in primary care and explore whether in the period prior to diagnosis seeing the same doctor is associated with earlier detection."