The Cancer Outcomes and Services Data set (COSD) is the national standard for reporting cancer for the NHS in England to support implementation and monitoring of Improving Outcomes: a Strategy for Cancer (IOSC). The National Disease Registration Service (NDRS) are responsible for ongoing maintenance, development, and implementation.
COSD is a compiled data set, which provides the standard for secondary uses information required to support national cancer registration and associated analysis (at local, regional, national, and international level), as well as other national cancer audit programmes. COSD consists of:
- a set of individual data items, with their definitions
- the assemblage of these data items into tumour specific discrete data sets
- the means of flowing the data items
- compilation of the data items into two reconciled data sets:
- Patient Pathway
- Pathology
The data sets relate to all cancer patients, both adult and paediatric, in acute inpatient and outpatient settings, but does not include private patients or primary care.
This information standard is published under section 250 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012. An Information Standards Notice (see below) provides an overview of scope and implementation timescales, and the other listed documents provide further detail for those who have to implement the information standard.