Abstract
Do people with a mental health and addictions history get a raw deal when presenting to health services with physical symptoms? Receiving a cancer diagnosis as part of an emergency presentation (acute or emergency hospital admissions) is a marker of the timeliness of access to and quality of health care (from screening and diagnosis through to treatment and follow-up). In New Zealand, people using specialist mental health and addiction services are more likely to receive a diagnosis of prostate, lungs, breast or colorectal cancer within 30 days of an emergency presentation.9 The likely reason for this is that this population have not been screened in primary care or have not been referred for specialist assessment. Proportions of diagnoses on emergency presentation for each form of cancer compared by diagnosis and mental health service use are shown.