NATCAN publishes the scope and quality improvement priorities for each cancer audit.

30.11.23

The National Cancer Audit Collaborating Centre (NATCAN) will strengthen NHS cancer services by providing information on the care and treatment of patients diagnosed with cancer, so they can deliver improvements in the quality of care to patients, from diagnosis to treatment and longer-term survival.

NATCAN includes new national cancer audits in breast cancer (primary and metastatic), ovarian, pancreatic, non-Hodgkin lymphoma and kidney cancer. During the Summer of 2023, we carried out an exercise to design the scope of the new audits, collaborating closely with professional groups, data partners, patient charities and patients to ensure we ask the right questions about cancer care and treatment. The established audits in prostate, bowel and oesophago-gastric cancer, which joined NATCAN this summer, also carried out a scoping exercise to define their future direction.

The scoping documents published today (see links below) identify explicit quality improvement (QI) priorities aiming to improve cancer care and outcomes that will ultimately lead to significant patient benefits.

We are thankful to everyone who contributed to this work and look forward to continuing to work collaboratively as we build healthcare improvement plans around clinically relevant and methodologically robust performance indicators that will be reported in 2024.

 ‘New’ audits:

• National Kidney cancer Audit (NKCA)
• National Audit of Metastatic Breast Cancer (NAoMe)
• National Ovarian Cancer Audit (NOCA)
• National Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma Cancer Audit (NNHLA)
• National Pancreatic Cancer Audit (NPaCA)
• National Audit of Primary Breast Cancer (NAoPri)

‘Established’ audits:

• National Bowel Cancer Audit
• National Oesophago-Gastric Cancer Audit
• National Prostate Cancer Audit
• National Lung Cancer Audit
  • The NLCA joined NATCAN in October 2023. The QI priorities for the NLCA were defined in 2022.