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Cancer Waiting Times Data Collection (CWT)

The national Cancer Waiting Times (CWT) system allows NHS providers to record data derived from patient care activity. This data can be used to monitor cancer waiting times targets or plan service improvements. As a patient moves through the stages of their treatment pathway data on referrals, treatments and diagnosis are derived from care records locally (decisions on how to collect these data from local systems are made locally).

Cancer Waiting times System update

In 2026, the Cancer Waiting Times system will be moving to a new location.

Sign up to the Cancer Waiting Times System Futures Forum to receive updates on the migration and access to the new system.


If you are new to the system, please refer to the User Manual and other supporting documentation in our Guidance section.

The national cancer waiting times monitoring dataset guidance v12.0 provides information on the Cancer Waiting Times standards, with the updates to the standards applied from the 1 October 2023.

Frequency: Monthly


Launch and submission dates

The Cancer Waiting Times Database will be shut down at 5pm on the Upload Deadline dates below. This is to allow the reports to be generated overnight. The system will become available at 9am the following morning, at which point the newly generated reports will be available.

Uploads must be submitted to the upload queue before 5pm on the Upload Deadline dates below in order for the data to be included in the generated reports. The upload process will be allowed to fully process all entries in the queue before the reports are generated.

We recommend that you aim to complete uploads a few days prior to the deadlines, to allow time to check your data and make any necessary corrections.

Records can be manually created or modified using the Record screen up until the time when the system is closed down at 5pm on the Upload Deadline dates below.

Monthly data submissions

There is limit of 10,000 records per bulk upload on the Cancer Waiting Times system. 

Whilst the six-month revisions are still open to bulk submission changes, you can break up any submissions over 10,000 records by using time periods (one submission per month for example) when creating bulk files through your data collection and reporting systems (Infoflex/Somerset or other local system).

Report generation

Reports are generated on the first working day following the on screen edits deadline.   

Quarterly reports are automatically generated by the system from the monthly reports.  That is, the quarterly reports do not include changes to months 1 and 2 of the quarter as was the case on the Open Exeter system.   

Both monthly and quarterly reports are updated via revisions whereby twice per year revisions to April to September, and October to March data are processed.

Final upload deadlines and report generation dates for the Cancer Waiting Times System

Months required to be submitted Bulk upload deadline On screen edits deadline Report generation date Reports generated for Revisions
December 2025 2 February 2026 3 February 2026 4 February 2026 Q3 2025-26, December 2025  
January 2026 3 March 2026 4 March 2026 5 March 2026 January 2026  
February 2026 31 March 2026 1 April 2026 2 April 2026 February 2026  
March 2026 5 May 2026 6 May 2026 7 May 2026 Q4 2025-26, March 2026  
April 2026 2 June 2026 3 June 2026 4 June 2026 Q3 2025-26, Q4 2025-26, April 2026 October 2025 - March 2026
May 2026 30 June 2026 1 July 2026 2 July 2026 May 2026  
June 2026 29 July 2026 30 July 2026 31 July 2026 Q1 2026-27, June 2026  
July 2026 1 September 2026 2 September 2026 3 September 2026 July 2026  
August 2026 29 September 2026 30 September 2026 1 October 2026 August 2026  
September 2026 28 October 2026 29 October 2026 30 October 2026 Q2 2026-27, September 2026  
October 2026 1 December 2026 2 December 2026 3 December 2026 Q1 2026-27, Q2 2026-27, October 2026 April 2026 - September 2026
November 2026 4 January 2027 5 January 2027 6 January 2027 November 2026  
December 2027 2 February 2027 3 February 2027 4 February 2027 Q3 2026-27, December 2026  
January 2027 2 March 2027 3 March 2027 4 March 2027 January 2027  
February 2027 30 March 2027 31 March 2027 1 April 2027 February 2027  
March 2027 28 April 2027 29 April 2027 30 April 2027 Q4 2026-27, March 2027  

As of the December 2020 submission (deadline of 2nd to 3rd February 2021), all submissions are required to be in the Dataset 2.1 format.

More information is available on the DCB0147: National Cancer Waiting Times Monitoring Data Set page.



Contact details

To raise an issue with the Cancer Waiting Times System contact the National Service Desk:

National Service Desk
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 0300 303 5035

To raise an issue regarding policy, procedure or national statistics contact the Cancer Waiting Times team at NHS England email [email protected].


Further Information


Data Provision Notice


UK Cancer Data and Information


International Cancer Organisations


UK Cancer Tools and Intelligence

Some of these sites will require a login which you will need to request.

Last edited: 14 May 2026 2:17 pm