NNHLA Quarterly Clinical Performance Indicator Report April 2021 to March 2024 - published October 2024

The purpose of the National non-Hodgkin lymphoma Audit (NNHLA) is to evaluate the patterns of care and outcomes for people diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) in England and Wales, and to support services to improve the quality of their care. More details of the audit aims and scope can be found on our web page.

The NNHLA is part of the National Cancer Audit Collaborating Centre (NATCAN), the home of ten national cancer audits in England and Wales. This national centre of excellence was established to strengthen cancer services by evaluating the process of diagnosis and treatment, and outcomes in multiple cancer sites.

The NNHLA has published their first quarterly clinical performance indicator report, alongside an updated version of their data quality dashboard. These have both been released as online dashboards, as opposed to the excel file format of the previous data quality dashboard.

These online dashboards are subject to ongoing iterative development and we therefore welcome suggestions and feedback, which can help guide changes made in future releases.

The NNHLA quarterly report currently consists of the following online dashboards:

  1. Performance Indicator dashboard (updated quarterly):

Aim: to present performance indicators responsive to changes over time and to support NHS providers to track their progress and monitor quality improvement.

Intended audience: NHS provider teams in England.

Data source: Rapid Cancer Registration Dataset (RCRD), the Systemic Anti-Cancer Therapy Dataset (SACT)

Time period: People diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma between Q2 2021 and Q1 2024 (1st April 2021 – 31st March 2024)

  1. Data Quality dashboard (updated quarterly):

Aim: to shine a spotlight on areas where improvements in data completeness are needed.

Intended audience: NHS provider teams in England.

Data source: Rapid Cancer Registration Dataset (RCRD), Cancer Outcomes and Services Dataset (COSD)

Time period: People diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma between Q2 2023 and Q1 2024 (1st April 2023 – 31st March 2024)

Access the Dashboard here>

Why do we report data completeness/quality?

We aim to shine a spotlight on areas where improvements in data completeness are needed, as this aspect of data quality underpins what we can reliably and robustly report as an audit.

We encourage all provider teams to review their data completeness and make improvements as required. This will increase the number of people diagnosed with NHL that we can include in analyses and increase the range of analyses we can conduct.

The National Disease Registration Service (NDRS) has regional Data Liaison Managers who support NHS teams submitting cancer data to NDRS with advice and support on data improvement initiatives. We encourage trusts to get in touch with this team for support and advice. Contact details can be found here.

How does cancer registration data used for the Quarterly Report differ from that used for the State of the Nation report?  

The Quarterly Report makes use of the Rapid Cancer Registration Dataset (RCRD), whereas the State of the Nation report makes use of the complete cancer registration dataset.

The Rapid Cancer Registration Dataset (RCRD) is compiled mainly from Cancer Outcomes and Services Dataset (COSD) records and is made available more quickly than the complete cancer registration dataset.

However, the speed of production of the RCRD means that the range of data items is limited and several standard data items in the complete registration dataset are unavailable.

Therefore, not all performance indicators included in the State of the Nation report can be included in the Quarterly Report.

For any queries relating to the audit, please email [email protected].

Last updated: 10 October 2024, 11:26am