Specialists have agreed that in the UK pancreatic cancer surgery should only take place in specialist centres serving a population of at least 2million so that the team of surgeons deals with a high volume of patients - around 100 to 200 a year. The progress towards regionalization of pancreatic cancer surgery in the UK has been slow but is taking place.

Establishment of regional centres in England is due to be complete in 2007. Some centres are now established and in other areas the final location of the surgical centre has still to be decided so that the number of hospitals offering pancreatic cancer surgery will be reduced slightly. Centres are already agreed in Scotland but in Wales and Ireland the services have not yet been formally reorganized.

Below we provide a list of the current regional pancreatic cancer surgical centres and where possible we have provided links to the hospital web-sites and information on their services and consultants and medical teams treating pancreatic cancer. These services may be called HPB ie hepatopancreaticobiliary as the same specialists may deal with pancreatic, liver, gallbladder and bile duct cancers. As the regionalization of surgery is still being developed the hospitals designated to undertake surgery may change so we cannot guarentee that the list is totally up to date.