Cancer Patient Tracking List

Data Provision Notice to require the submission of data from all acute trusts providing elective cancer services so that conformance to the cancer 62-day and faster diagnosis standards can be centrally monitored.

Overview

NHS England has been directed to collect data relating to cancer waiting times.

The Cancer Patient Tracking List data collection is used to monitor the performance of acute trusts in respect of the national cancer 62-day and faster diagnosis standards.

Commissioners and NHS England use the data to support discussions to ensure compliance against the standards. Weekly totals for England and each Acute Trust are published on NHS England’s website each month covering the same period as the latest month’s Cancer Waiting Times publication.

Data is only published internally within the NHS on the FutureNHS site (login required).

Scope

This Notice is served on:

NHS acute trusts providing cancer services

Legal basis

ARTICLE

The migration and continued operation of the Unify2 collections through Strategic Data Collections Service Direction 2017

A Direction given by the Secretary of State for Health requiring NHS Digital to establish the migration of the Unify2 collections listed in Annex A onto NHS Digital's Strategic Data Collections Service (SDCS) and continue the operation of these collections through this service.

Period

Data has been submitted since 2015. It is collected on a weekly basis and is due by 5pm on the Wednesday following the end of the previous week.

A detailed submission timetable is published on the NHS England data collection website.

Read the Data Provision Notice and supporting IG specification

Cancer Patient Tracking List (PTL) Data Provision Notice (Version 4.0)

pdf 907 KB

Updates

2026

1 April 2026 : Version 4.0 of this Notice has been issued to reflect the three yearly regular review.

2021 - 2022

24 June 2022: Version 3 of this Notice has been issued to reflect changes introduced in June 2022 to support the Recovery of Critical Services initiative and the new Faster Diagnosis Standard.

January 2021: Version 2.0 of the Notice has been issued to reflect changes made to the collection in November 2020.

Last edited: 5 May 2026 10:29 am