Objective To assess the impact of the upper gastrointestinal ‘Be Clear on Cancer’ campaign launched by Public Health England between January and February 2015 on open-access gastroscopy referrals, incidence of target diagnoses (oesophagogastric cancer and Barrett’s oesophagus), cancer staging at presentation, 1-year survival and cost per additional diagnosis.

Design We performed a retrospective study of patients referred for 2-week-wait (2WW), open-access endoscopy 3 months following the campaign with diagnoses, endoscopic findings, staging and 12-month survival compared with data from corresponding months in 2014.

Setting Three adjacent National Health Service trusts in the West Midlands with a combined population of 1.34 million in 2015.

Results 2WW open-access referrals increased by 48% (95% CI 1.35 to 1.61, p<0.001). The proportion of target diagnoses fell from 6.7% to 6.1% (p=0.62). There were no significant overall increases in target diagnoses (OR 1.35, 95% CI 0.95 to 1.92, p=0.11) or cancer (OR 1.30, 95% CI 0.80 to 2.07, p=0.36). There was no change in tumour, node, metastasis (TNM) staging for oesophageal or gastric cancer. Overall 1-year survival did not alter significantly (HR 1.10, 95% CI 0.56 to 2.19, p=0.76).

Discussion The ‘Be Clear on Cancer’ campaign led to a 48% increase in demand for 2WW gastroscopies but did not significantly affect the incidence of target diagnoses, cancer staging or 1-year survival.