COSD data improvement suite

The suite of dashboards presented here are intended to monitor quality and ascertainment of Cancer Outcomes and Services Dataset (COSD) data submissions from cancer services providers in England. Each output has been specifically aligned with data improvement objectives and is designed to empower COSD providers with the information they need to enact and monitor their own improvement programmes.

Any data visualisation, score or ranking shown is reported for monitoring and data improvement purposes and is reflective only of data quality in the COSD submission. It is NOT indicative of the quality of clinical care, treatment or the outcomes of those treatments for patients in any health geography or NHS Trust shown.

Acknowledgement

This work uses data that has been provided by patients and collected by the NHS as part of their care and support. The data is collated, maintained and quality assured by the National Disease Registration Service, which is part of NHS England (NHSE).

Specific guidance for usage and any unique features of an individual report is included in the guidance section of that product. Refer also to Section 1.3 (General Dashboard Guidance) of the COSD Reference resource for an overview of features common to all the online dashboard products.

* Please note that access to these reports requires a secure Health and Social Care Network connection. 

COSD Key Metrics in England (link opens in a new window)

Presents completeness of MDT stage, MDT performance status and clinical nurse specialist (CNS) indicator for NHS trusts in England from national, cancer alliance and provider specific perspectives for dates of diagnosis in the quarter of interest, previous 12 months or any custom period. Permits breakdown by provider, cancer group and month of diagnosis for any diagnoses within the dataset.

COSD Diagnoses by Provider (link opens in a new window)

Presents counts and, where appropriate, proportions by specific grouping for diagnosis pathway (primary and non-primary), CNS contact, broad CTYA age group and basis of diagnosis. Permits breakdown of diagnosis counts by provider, cancer group and month of diagnosis for any diagnoses within the dataset.

COSD Submission Monitoring (link opens in a new window)

This dashboard is intended primarily for NDRS staff (and other interested stakeholders) to gauge the timeliness and content of COSD submissions made by providers.

It presents submission dates, counts and delta counts (change) for selected metrics in the submission by provider, cancer group and diagnosis pathway for dates of diagnosis in the current and previous year. It also presents an estimation of ascertainment based on a triangulation of HES, CWT and COSD data sources to estimate the proportion of missing COSD diagnoses - as also presented in the COSD Monthly Feedback Report (see below).

COSD Reference (link opens in a new window)

Provides live documentation for the Data Improvement Suite including dynamic presentation of current reference and lookup tables used to construct those reports. Presents reference, methodological, dataset and other supporting information used by products in the data improvement suite.

COSD Monthly Feedback Report

This is an interactive, offline HTML report that is generated at the end of each calendar month and distributed directly to provider cancer teams by NDRS COSD data liaison managers.

These are provider specific reports presenting diagnoses, an estimate of COSD ascertainment, completeness of MDT stage, MDT performance status and clinical nurse specialist (CNS) indicator for each COSD provider in England. Reports on all diagnoses submitted via COSD for months of diagnosis within the past year to the current month and includes extensive narrative notes to support interpretation and reproducibility.

NDRS Data Liaison

The National Disease Registration Service (NDRS) are making every effort to support each provider in achieving the highest levels of data quality in their COSD submission. Your Data Liaison Manager can provide extensive support across the entire data collection pathway to improve the quality of data submitted to the National Disease Registration Service.

Please contact your NDRS data improvement manager for further details of how to receive and utilise these reports.

These reports share a common methodology and are derived from an aggregated COSD dataset as described in the COSD Reference resource. The dataset includes counts in specific COSD metrics aggregated by month of diagnosis, provider and broad cancer groups based on ICD10. The dataset is refreshed daily to include all submissions (typically to the previous day) made by providers with dates of diagnosis in the current and previous year.

The Cancer Outcomes and Services Dataset (COSD) supports national cancer registration and associated analysis (at local, regional, national, and international level) in addition to other national cancer audit programmes. All NHS providers of cancer services in England have been required to provide a monthly return using this data set for all cancer diagnoses since January 2013.

These reports have been designed to support trust data collection teams, facilitate data improvement work and to enable clinicians and management boards to understand their COSD conformance and the quality of their submissions..

Find out more about the COSD dataset.

This dashboard provides access to operational and clinical data produced by the National Disease Registration Service (NDRS). The data is derived from sensitive patient level information and is shared to support data quality improvement, service planning, and performance monitoring within health and care organisations.

While the data is de-personalised, small numbers or rare conditions may increase the risk of re-identification. Users must therefore take care when interpreting and sharing outputs.

By accessing this dashboard, users are expected to act in accordance with NHS information governance principles, the Caldicott Principles, and applicable data protection legislation, including the Data Protection Act 2018 and UK GDPR.

Users must ensure that:

• data is used only for legitimate health and care purposes
• data is not used to identify individuals, either directly or indirectly
• data is not shared, reproduced, or used outside authorised environments or without a clear business need
• any onward sharing is carefully considered, balancing the risk of disclosure against the intended benefit, and only shared with appropriate organisations or individuals
• outputs are interpreted appropriately, taking account of limitations in completeness, timeliness, and accuracy
• published or shared data relates only to their own organisation or is benchmarked against England-level data
• any published outputs meet anonymisation standards
• advice is sought from local Information Governance teams or a Caldicott Guardian where there is any uncertainty or risk

Permission must be sought in advance of any publication that includes Welsh and/or Scottish data from:

• Public Health Wales
• Public Health Scotland

When publishing data please ensure to follow the guidance for staff and stakeholders about how and when to acknowledge the use of NDRS data.

If you have any concerns about data use, interpretation, or disclosure risk, please email the NDRS team at to nhsdigital.ndrsdatahub@nhs.net 

We intend this dashboard to be as useful as possible to the community and aim to improve them to meet user needs. Please send any feedback to nhsdigital.ndrsdatahub@nhs.net 

Please do not include sensitive or patient identifiable information.