SACT Data view covers 100% of the Scottish population

In late December 2020, analysts from the Scottish Cancer Registry and Intelligence Service (SCRIS) team connected to the final two ChemoCare databases. With those connections now established, this means there is now a Systemic Anti-Cancer Treatment (SACT) data view for the population of Scotland.

Over the next two years, the SCRIS team will work to make this national view of SACT data available in the SCRIS dashboards. This will allow service managers and clinicians to benchmark their services against the rest of Scotland. The aim is to create a “learning healthcare system” for SACT, whereby clinicians and departments can improve what they offer patients by understanding what their peers are doing in other Scottish centres.

This data view is in line with the move towards the “Once for Scotland” cancer treatment protocols that aim to establish a national consensus over cancer data collection, and linkage.

Supporting National Cancer Recovery in Scotland

A recent publication in the British Journal of Cancer described the successful recovery of cancer SACT activity in Scotland after the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic. The high quality and granularity of data within NHSScotland and SCRIS is helping clinicians and policy makers understand the impact of COVID-19 and the response and recovery of cancer services.

A SACT activity dashboard was created to replicate the work in this paper. This dashboard is the most up to date national view of national SACT activity data in the world, with the system being refreshed on a weekly basis to produce a national SACT activity report for Scotland.

This report is delivered to the Scottish National Cancer Recovery Group, which was set up to provide national oversight of the operational recovery of cancer services during the recovery phases of the coronavirus pandemic.

Currently, activity data (numbers of attendances) can be viewed in the prototype dashboard. Information breakdowns of activity are available by type of cancer, route by which the chemotherapy is given (IV, Oral, Other) and by Cancer Network in this dashboard. Over the next two years, SCRIS will work to refine the SACT dataset and make more detailed analysis available to the health service, covering a much larger range of topics, such as the most common regimens, and the numbers of patients travelling outside of their Health Board for treatment.

Cancer Intelligence Platform

A National Cancer Intelligence Platform for Scotland is under development. This will bring all Scottish cancer datasets into one place so they can be easily accessed and analysed. Initially, this will only be available to Public Health Scotland analysts. However, future iterations will be open to NHS cancer analysts and possibly wider groups.

Gregor McNie, Lead of the Cancer Policy Team at The Scottish Government, is supportive of data driving improvements to cancer services in Scotland. He said:

The work of the SCRIS and the wider cancer data team in developing a national view of SACT data from across Scotland is a great achievement. This will ensure improvements in treatments for patients are based on evidence from a national level. The development of the National Cancer Intelligence Platform will continue to drive the “Once for Scotland” approach to the wealth of cancer data we have in this country.

Gregor McNie

Find out about SCRIS 

Modernising the Scottish Cancer Registry