NDRS digital transformation project

In 2013, the 8 regional cancer registries for England and the National Cancer Intelligence Network (NCIN) became part of Public Health England and in 2015 they merged to become the National Cancer Registration and Analysis Service (NCRAS).

NCRAS was soon joined by the National Congenital Anomaly and Rare diseases Registration Service (NCARDRS) to form the  National Disease Registration Service (NDRS),acquiring more datasets including the National Radiotherapy Dataset (RTDS) and the Systemic Anti-Cancer Therapy dataset (SACT), multiple partnerships with academia, NHS and third sector partners and provides resources and assets such as Cancerdata and CancerStats1 and CancerStats2.

These changes  created a range of legacy sites and resources and practices resulting in a fragmented online presence and confusion for our stakeholders and staff. Therefore, in 2019 we initiated a digital transformation programme for NDRS to create a single online point of access for all audiences for all our information and resources. The objectives of this new website are:

• a more discoverable and easier to navigate single point of access for all NDRS online content
• timely and accurate NDRS content
• fully accessible content that meets the accessibility requirements for the Government Digital Service standards
• a dedicated resource for content monitoring, website maintenance and ongoing updates and improvements

We followed the Government Digital Standard (GDS) design principles to develop the new NDRS website. This emphasises the user need, ensuring that the end user is involved in the development and ongoing iteration of the site to ensure it continues to meet their needs.

Find out more about the GDS design principles from the .gov.uk website.

In October 2019, we appointed an external supplier, Unboxed, to undertake a service design discovery phase to better understand staff and stakeholder needs. The discussions with users  identified  key recommendations and possible solutions for our online tools and platforms that we then took forward to   explore further in the  alpha phase.

In March 2020 we appointed an external supplier Rainmaker to work with us  to migrate and consolidate our online presence  and improve discoverability, accessibility and use of NDRS products and outputs.

The key activities were to :

• migrate content from the legacy websites
• user test possible  prototypes  
• understand what our users like and don’t like/ what is useful and what is not to gain a clear understanding of user needs to help create the final product

In April 2021, NDRS underwent a rigorous assessment to ensure that the project team were adhering to GDS standards for providing a digital public service. The Alpha phase was successfully signed off by NHSX (now the NHS Transformation Directorate) and the project was allowed to proceed to the next phase of development, private beta. 

View the full GDS assessment report on the gov.uk website. 

The project has now reached the public beta phase, allowing the team to create a functional website based on everything we have learnt about user needs, design, accessibility and requested functionality.

Rigorous testing during this phase is crucial to ensure that everything is working as expected.

And this website is the project MVP that we have shared with our key stakeholders. 

The objectives of the new website is to deliver:

• a more discoverable and easier to navigate single point of access for all NDRS online content
• timely and accurate NDRS content
• fully accessible content that meets the accessibility requirements for the Government Digital Service standards
• a dedicated resource for content monitoring, website maintenance and ongoing updates and improvements

The below image gives an overview of the current beta project timelines:

Summary of timeline points:

• October 2021 - the beta project was launched
• July 2022 - the beta website underwent security penetration testing
• August 2022 -  the website and content underwent accessibility and user testing
• September 2022 - the private beta website was launched and shared with key NDRS stakeholder
• February 2023 - the beta project was assessed by Government Digital Services (GDS) 
• April 2023 - the public beta website was launched and made publicly available
• May (onwards) 2023 - all legacy sites will be archived and the CancerData content migrated

The public beta will run until we are satisfied that we have captured, assessed, and responded to feedback that is representative of as many of our users and use cases as possible.

Soon, all legacy NDRS sites (NCIN.org.uk, Chemodataset.nhs.uk and NDRS.nhs.uk) will become part of the National Government Archives and the new NDRS website will be the single point of access for all NDRS online content.

Following this phase, and on the completion of user acceptance testing and a final GDS  standards assessment, the final site will be officially launched and therefore proceed to the LIVE phase.

As part of the ongoing development of this new NDRS site we would love to hear what you think about it.

We would be very grateful if you could take a few minutes to complete a beta feedback form. We will be reviewing and considering all comments and suggestions to continue to improve the site as we progress to the live site.