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Cancer Waiting Times (CWT) data set

The national Cancer Waiting Times (CWT) system allows NHS providers to record data derived from patient care activity. This data can be used to monitor cancer waiting times targets or plan service improvements. As a patient moves through the stages of their treatment pathway data on referrals, treatments and diagnosis are derived from care records locally (decisions on how to collect these data from local systems are made locally).

Page contents

Data set available in packages

  • No

Period of data coverage

Cancer waiting times data has been collected since 2001 with numerous changes to the dataset and the information available in the national cancer waiting times system, which has also changed including being hosted by a range of organisations.

In the future, CWT data will be available dating back to April 2009.

For the purposes of this version of the CWT product, data will be from April 2018 onwards (which is when the current national cancer waiting times system was launched)

Geographical scope of data

England  

Linkable to other data sets

  • Yes

There will be common fields within data sets which will allow linkage to other data sets. In this case the field is NHS_Number_DEID. Production will need to advise customers what is the equivalent field to use in other data sets such as Token_Person_ID or Person_ID_DEID.

In general, NHS England use PID fields to create an accurate pseudo MPS-ID across the data sets that have been asked for.

Customers will have a tokenised version of their asset which is specific to them.

Data collection process

Submitted by: NHS trusts, NHS foundation trusts and other providers of cancer care services in England

Collected by: NHS England

Frequency: Monthly

Clinical coding systems

Does the data set include any standardised systems of coding?

  • The International Classification of Diseases (ICD) code used to identify the PRIMARY DIAGNOSIS.
Full list of coding systems considered

SNOMED-CT (a structured clinical vocabulary for use in electronic health records.)

ICD  (International Classification of Diseases classifies diseases and other health conditions.)

OPCS-4  (Office of Population Census and Surveys classification of interventions and surgical procedures)

dm+d  (Dictionary of descriptions and codes which represent medicines and devices in use across the NHS.)

NICIP (National Interim Clinical Imaging Procedure provides consistent recording of imaging procedures.)

UCUM  (Unified Code for Units of Measure (UCUM) is a code system intended to include all units of measurement.)

TFCs (Treatment Function Codes are used to record treatment activities undertaken)

Read Code v2  (A coded thesaurus of clinical terms.)

Read Code Clinical Terms v3 (A coded thesaurus of clinical terms.)

UICC (Union for International Cancer Control classification of cancer by anatomic disease extent.)

IMD  (Indices of Multiple Deprivation measures relative poverty.)

Derived fields

Standardised formulation may be applied across multiple data sets to generate commonly derived fields.  Any standard derivations applicable to this data set are listed below. Please note that this does not include bespoke derivations created specifically for the individual data set.

  • CCG_OF_RESIDENCE
  • ICS_OF_RESIDENCE
  • LA_OF_RESIDENCE
  • LSOA_OF_RESIDENCE
  • ICS_OF_REGISTRATION
  • CCG_OF_REGISTRATION
  • LA_OF_REGISTRATION
  • LSOA_OF_REGISTRATION
Full list of standard derivations considered
  • GP_PRACTICE_CODE_TRACED
  • POSTCODE_TRACED
  • CCG_OF_RESIDENCE
  • ICS_OF_RESIDENCE
  • LA_OF_RESIDENCE
  • LSOA_OF_RESIDENCE
  • ICS_OF_REGISTRATION
  • CCG_OF_REGISTRATION
  • LA_OF_REGISTRATION
  • LSOA_OF_REGISTRATION
  • PERSON_ID

Third party licensing

Does the data set require copyrighted clinical assessment tools or outcome measures that require a licence?

  • None 

Advice and support

Governance of this data set is provided by:

Owning organisation: NHS England

Data Controller: NHS England

Data Processor: NHS England

NHS England provides a variety of functions for the data sets we make available.  Therefore, our knowledge and understanding of the data will vary, impacting the level of advice and support we can provide.

In relation to this data set, we undertake end to end management and can therefore provide a full advice, guidance and support service.

Supporting documentation and guidance

ARTICLE

Cancer Waiting Times Data Collection (CWT)

The national cancer waiting times system collects data about how cancer patients move through stages of their treatment, which is then used to monitor performance against targets, and to help plan services locally.

Last edited: 25 June 2025 4:41 pm