The National Cancer Audit Collaborating Centre (NATCAN): improving the quality of National Health Service cancer care in England and Wales

Abstract

The National Cancer Audit Collaborating Centre (NATCAN) was launched on Oct 1, 2022, and is delivering ten national cancer audits to assess and assure the quality of National Health Service (NHS) cancer care in England and Wales. These audits are a collaboration between clinical leaders, methodological experts, professional organisations, civil society, and policy makers to develop and implement performance measures across all NHS cancer care and inform quality improvement of the care pathway. The aims of NATCAN are to provide transparent and timely feedback to hospitals about their practices and outcomes of cancer care, identify opportunities for improvement of cancer care, and support hospitals to conduct quality-improvement initiatives. The key methods used to achieve these aims were use of routinely collected data that did not necessitate bespoke collection by health-care staff specifically for the audit; public reporting of outcomes of care at hospital and regional levels; assessment of determinants of variation in cancer care to target quality improvement; and a central governance structure to ensure that unsafe care or outlying performance were managed effectively and promptly. This Personal View provides comparisons between NATCAN and other international audit programmes, including how other countries could consider and incorporate components of NATCAN, alongside scope for future development.