Collecting and submitting SACT data

The impact of the standard will vary, depending on the configuration of hospitals and services and the existing and planned implementation of electronic prescribing and other clinical electronic systems.

The contents of this User Guidance document should be made available to all staff groups involved in responding to the standard, including:

• medical and nursing
• pharmacy
• information
• IT
• management staff

It is not intended that the standard should have any direct impact on the delivery of patient care. However, the above groups, which are involved in the local implementation of the information standard, need to take account of any new changes of the standard in their work area and develop a strategy to fully meet its requirements by the end of the implementation period.

If you are a new provider of systemic anti-cancer therapies; as well as reading the Implementation user guide, please contact the NDRS liaison team.

Other useful recourses to support the collection of the SACT data set, can be found on the NDRS/SACT webpage.

SACT data collection in England commenced in April 2012 and is a major part of cancer treatment, with new types of drugs being introduced capable of targeting individual cancers. Historically the recording of SACT activity was held within individual patients' notes. Systemic anti-cancer therapies have been proven to be successful as a treatment but are ever more complex and expensive. Accurate, timely and complete data collection is a priority and supported through electronic clinical data collection.

The SACT Information Standard addresses the requirement to standardise the recording of SACT treatment and outcomes through electronic systems. Version 4.0 is an extension to the standard, introducing new data, correcting existing data (for better analysis) and removing redundant data to reduce the burden of data collection wherever possible.

The SACT data set community was launched on FutureNHS in August 2023. Please note this replaces the previous community on the Knowledge Hub and is only available to NHS staff working within an NHS Trust in England or via a Cancer Alliance. The community offers a space for members to make connections with other NHS Trusts and Alliances and access important guidance and updates from the SACT data set team.

Once registered, users will have access to the community forum which provides a space to ask questions to other members and view or join discussions. They can also access important updates, information, webinar recordings and slide decks. Updates include upcoming events and the SACT data set team's 'What Happened This Month' blog on the community homepage. To request an invitation, please complete our short online form, you will then receive an invitation to join, usually within 2 working days.

The SACT data set also underpins the work of the NHSE partnership on ‘Cancer Data’, and the ‘Cancer Drugs Fund’.

This partnership uses National Cancer Registration and Analysis Service (NCRAS) data sets, including the information submitted by Trusts to the SACT data set on current routine care, to inform improvements in service provision and clinical practice.

More information on the work of NDRS partnerships can be found on our work section of the NDRS website.

You can find out more about the methodologies applied when using the SACT data set to evaluate CDF treatments using this link.

Data files are required to be submitted monthly, using the 2-month schedule, for example: submissions of September 2025 activity data (01-09-2025 to 30-09-2025) must be uploaded as follows:

• 1 to 30 November 2025
  • files containing September data MUST be uploaded to the portal and all errors on the file MUST be resolved
• by 15 December 2025
  • regimen mapping MUST be completed
  • this process can start at any point once the file has been uploaded
• by 31 December 2025
  • all regimen queries MUST be resolved, and the file MUST be submitted

Below is a SACT monthly activity diagram...

Notes:

• all provider Trusts are advised to upload as early as possible in the month as this will allow more time to fix any errors
• uploading on the last day will mean that there may not be enough time to fix any errors and therefore Trusts may become ‘non-compliant’ for various measures
• uploading earlier in the month will allow more time for regimen mapping if needed

There are detailed instructions on how to upload your data on the EnCORE API by clicking this link, which will take you to the SACT technical guidance webpage.

This includes information on:

• general submission principals
• data extraction in csv format
• SACT column header convention in csv format
• file submission via the EnCORE API

In addition, there is information on data submissions and file naming convention, such as:

• data items that should be submitted
• validations
• reporting

Periodically we need to revise the SACT data set, to ensure that we meet the current information requirements for the NHS.

The ‘NHS Long Term Plan’ aims to save thousands of lives each year by dramatically improving how we diagnose and treat cancer. The ambition is that by 2028, an extra 55,000 people each year will survive for five years or more following their cancer diagnosis.

The need to have strong cancer data collection, empowers NHS England to enforce this through the mandate of data collections. These data will be the base for cancer analysis and research for the next 5 years.

Since its conception in 2012, SACT data has been used for a series of important analyses, including 30-day mortality post SACT. In addition, the CancerStats2 portal has now become the home of SACT analysis reporting and contains many additional reports as follows:

• SACT activity
• data completeness and quality reports
• dose branding
• specific CTYA data analysis
• time to first treatment

In addition, there is also analysis and reports around the cancer drugs fund.

To access CancerStats2, you need to be on a Health and Social Care Network (HSCN) and have a valid user account. If you feel you need access to these reports, please speak to your regional Data Liaison Manager and they will support you with this.