List of Requirements

Requirement 1: To enhance transparency and allow users to input to developments, NHS England should publish a development plan for its cancer waiting times statistics. The plan should include details of work that NHS England plans to carry out in relation to more-granular data breakdowns and understanding users’ needs in relation to health inequalities. NHS England should share this plan both with its known users and on its website to ensure it reaches as wide a range of individuals and organisations as possible.

Requirement 2: To help users understand the strengths, limitations and comparability of the statistics, NHS England should publish:

• Comprehensive information about quality and methods. The provided information should include aspects such as the data journey from submission to publication, quality assurance processes, steps taken to prevent misreporting and coverage and completeness of the data.
• Its disclosure control document to reassure users about any concerns relating to small numbers in the data.
• More information about coherence and cross-UK comparability within its release.

Requirement 3: NHS England should improve the presentation of the statistics so that they are accessible to, and easy to use for, a wide range of users. This should include improving the insight provided by the explanatory text, the signposting between various parts of the release, and considering more-interactive ways of presenting the data, such as via dashboards. In meeting this requirement, NHS England should speak to a broad range of users to identify their needs and aim to address them where possible. Where improvements are likely to take longer to implement, such as developing and publishing dashboards, NHS England should include details of its plans within the development plan that it publishes to satisfy Requirement 1.

Requirement 4: To enhance the insights offered by the statistics, NHS England should explore the feasibility of publishing more-granular information and provide feedback to users about what is and is not possible and why. Based on user feedback, the priority for this work should be providing breakdowns for the faster diagnosis standard of those who are diagnosed with cancer versus those who have cancer ruled out. Over the longer term, NHS England should look at ways to enable publishing waiting times data for specific cancer types and should work with users to identify their needs in relation to health inequalities. NHS England should include details of its longer-term work within the development plan that it publishes to satisfy Requirement 1.