We know that trusts welcomed the opportunity last year to validate their data for patients who were diagnosed with lung cancer in 2016. We are providing the opportunity again this year (for patients diagnosed in 2017), but with a different process that will enable trusts to refresh their data before the NLCA mid-year and annual reports are published. Under the new process:

• the NCRAS will return a cumulative report at intervals throughout the year, identifying patients who have been processed and allocated to the trust as ‘trust first seen’.
• trusts will be encouraged to refresh their data on their cancer management system and to resend the data to the NCRAS via the Cancer Outcomes and Services Dataset (COSD) export (Excel spreadsheets will not be accepted this year).
• the NLCA will use trusts’ submitted data to compile their mid-year and annual reports, as long as the data are submitted by the specified deadlines (see ‘Submitting your data refreshes’ below).

Data returns to trusts

Trusts should have already received data for 2017 Q1 from their NCRAS data improvement (DI) lead. If not, please contact them using their details at the bottom of this blog post.

Cases are allocated to your trust using the COSD data item ‘Organisation Site Identifier (Provider First Seen) – CR1410’. If this is not complete or the NCRAS has conflicting data, the NLCA will use its trust first seen algorithm.

Full guidelines about the new process have been sent with the data – please ensure you read them.

The guidelines include instructions about how to deal with patients who you believe are missing from your report; patients who are in your report but are not in your cancer management system; and patients for whom you have a different diagnosis or a ‘no cancer’ diagnosis

Tasha Wood, NCRAS Audit Project Manager

Reviewing and refreshing your data

We encourage you to carefully review your data, paying special attention to the following key data items that are used within the NLCA annual report:

• Organisation Site Identifier (Provider First Seen) – CR1410
• Date of MDT – CR0430
• Clinical Nurse Indicator – CR2050
• Performance Status – CR0510

The guidelines include instructions about how to deal with patients who you believe are missing from your report; patients who are in your report but are not in your cancer management system; and patients for whom you have a different diagnosis or a ‘no cancer’ diagnosis.

Again, please contact your DI lead if you are unsure about how to deal with any of these situations.

Submitting your data refreshes

Once you have refreshed your data on your cancer management system, please send it via your cancer management systems COSD export back to the NCRAS using the normal data submission email (please see the guidelines for full details).

Cases processed	Date sent to trust	Date to resend to the NCRAS
(2017) January–March	28.02.18	23.03.18
(2017) January–June	30.04.18	18.05.18

Data for January–June 2017 that are submitted by 18.05.18 will be included in the NLCA mid-year report.

(2017) January–September	02.07.18	20.07.18
(2017) January–December	27.08.18	14.09.18

Data for January–December 2017 that are submitted by14.09.18 will be included in the NLCA annual report.

NCRAS data improvement leads:

• National – Karen Graham: Karen.Graham@phe.gov.uk
• East Midlands – Simon Cairnes: Simon.Cairnes@phe.gov.uk
• Eastern – Marianne Mollett: Marianne.Mollett@phe.gov.uk
• London – Katrina Sung: Katrina.Sung@phe.gov.uk
• North West – Simon Cairnes: Simon.Cairnes@phe.gov.uk
• Northern and Yorkshire – Laura Prenton: Laura.Prenton@phe.gov.uk
• Oxford – Gemma Feeney: Gemma.Feeney@phe.gov.uk
• South West – James Withers: James.Withers@phe.gov.uk
• West Midlands – Gemma Feeney: Gemma.Feeney@phe.gov.uk

Please do not send any patient identifiable data to these email accounts.

Tasha Wood, NCRAS Audit Project Manager