Systemic Anti-Cancer Therapy Dataset (Chemotherapy)

The Systemic Anti-Cancer Therapy (SACT) dataset is the national mandatory collection of systemic anti-cancer therapy activity from all NHS England chemotherapy providers. You can find out the latest information available from the SACT department within the National Cancer Registration and Analysis service of Public Health England at www.chemodataset.nhs.uk.

Background

The Systemic Anti-Cancer Therapy SACT dataset collects information reported routinely by NHS trusts on the treatment of malignant disease in secondary care in England. This database relates to all cancer patients, both adult and paediatric, in acute inpatient, day-case and outpatient settings and delivery in the community. It covers systemic anti-cancer treatment for all solid and haematological malignancies, including patients in clinical trials.

Systemic anti-cancer therapies, including cancer chemotherapy, have been provided in the NHS for decades but no national recording of treatment has previously existed. Systemic anti-cancer therapies are increasingly successful as a treatment but are ever more complex and expensive. Accurate, timely and complete data collection is now seen as a priority and this is made feasible through electronic clinical data collection.

The SACT dataset collection was launched in April 2012 across England in a phased process over two years. All NHS provider trusts have been mandated to send monthly data submissions from April 2014.

The scope of SACT

The SACT data collection is the world’s first comprehensive database, collecting information on systemic-anti cancer therapies on a national scale. It provides a powerful new tool to understand patterns of service provision and support clinical decision making to improve patient care. The data set has been designed to understand outcomes of systemic treatments and by linking it to other data sources, Public Health England can provide a complete picture of the cancer patient pathway.

Publications

Publications, including reports and data briefings, using SACT data can be found on the SACT website:

http://www.chemodataset.nhs.uk/home 

Contact Details

Please get in touch with the SACT helpdesk at sact@phe.gov.uk if you have any questions about the database.