National Bowel Cancer Audit, Open data – 2010-2011

Making clinical audit data transparent In his transparency and open data letter to Cabinet Ministers on 7 July 2011, the Prime Minister made a commitment to make clinical audit data available from the national audits within the National Clinical Audit and Patient Outcomes Programme. Each year data from the National Bowel Cancer Audit will be made available in CSV format. The data are also being made available on the data.gov website. What information is being made available? Audit participation by NHS Trust and data completeness for the key fields. Measures about the process of care given to patients. Information about care outcomes and treatment. Trusts and Networks are identified by name and their national code. These data do not list individual patient information, nor do they contain any patient identifiable data. The National Bowel Cancer Audit Project is a high profile, collaborative, national clinical audit for bowel cancer run jointly by The Health and Social Care Information Centre and the Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland (ACPGBI). The NHS Information Centre's National Clinical Audit Support Programme (NCASP) provides project management and the technical infrastructure, while the ACPGBI provides clinical leadership and direction. The audit aims to improve the quality of care and survival of patients with bowel cancer. It meets the requirements as set out in the NHS Cancer Plan, NICE guidelines and the Report of the Bristol Royal Infirmary Inquiry. The National Bowel Cancer Audit 2010-2011 covers the time period from 1st August 2010 to 31st July 2011, Hospital sites within England are included.