NHS England (Quarry House): The National Cancer Waiting Times Monitoring DataSet (NCWTMDS) is a national, patient level data collection by NHS Digital, under a Direction from NHS England (NHSE).

Data-sharing agreement from NHS Digital registers of approved data releases, 2014–2019. Evidence status: source reported.

Organisation: NHS England (Quarry House)
Source reference: DARS-NIC-266008-T3S9D-v0.3
Jurisdiction: England
Licence: Open Government Licence v3.0, subject to NHS England terms and exclusions

Register reference: DARS-NIC-266008-T3S9D-v0.3
Agreement period: not published to no end date published
For commercial purposes (as marked in the register): Not stated
Release files listed by NHS England: 1

Data approved

National Cancer Waiting Times Monitoring DataSet (CWT)

Objective, as published

The National Cancer Waiting Times Monitoring DataSet (NCWTMDS) is a national, patient level data collection by NHS Digital, under a Direction from NHS England (NHSE). The data are used for monitoring times taken to diagnose and treat patients with cancer and ensure these are in line with the expectations and rights of patients in the NHS Constitution. As a patient moves through the stages of their treatment pathway, data on referrals, treatments and diagnosis are derived from care records locally. The NCWTMDS provides the data used to publish the official cancer 62 day treatment target which is one of the key national statistics used to monitor the performance of the NHS. After collection, the cancer waiting times data can also be queried by NHS organisations, cancer networks and the Department of Health to provide reports and feedback on the progress towards meeting these targets. The NHS Long term plan states: "For all major conditions, the quality of care and the outcomes for patients are now measurably better than a decade ago. Childbirth is the safest it has ever been, cancer survival is at an all-time high, deaths from cardiovascular disease have halved since 1990, and male suicide is at a 31-year low. But there is good evidence to suggest that over the next decade the NHS should be doing even better. Partly that’s because there’s currently too much variation in service quality between clinical teams and between different parts of the country. Partly we’ll need to impr…

Expected benefits, as published

This additional analysis will allow NHS England to better understand the impact of deprivation on access and effectiveness of cancer pathways and to assess the value of routinely adding additional derivations to the NCWTMDS. The additional requested data attributes LSOA and IMD_Rank will be used to understand how deprived an area of residence is, and the additional fields Gender and Age will test the impact of standardisation i.e. to test if degree of inequality varies by age and gender. Enabling analysis of the Cancer Waiting Times data on a system wide basis will provide insight to focus service improvements on most effective areas to improve performance. In particular you would expect that access to the data be essential to delivery of the Cancer Waiting Times standards: • 2 week wait…

Source: https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/2019/https://digital.nhs.uk/binaries/content/assets/website-assets/services/dars/release-registers/releaseregister20190301_20190331.xlsx. Captured 2026-10-30.

Limitations: Agreement as recorded in an NHS Digital register of approved data releases (2014–2019), retrieved from the UK Government Web Archive. That register lists releases made in its period and the agreement's purpose statement as it then stood; it gives no agreement dates, and the agreement may have changed since. Imported only where a paper quotes a reference no current register holds.