Continued relaxation of the COSD schema for mandatory data items

Dear Colleague,

As you may be aware, the Information Standards Board (ISB) recently approved a change request covering some minor revisions to the Cancer Outcomes and Services Dataset (COSD), which have been identified during the course of implementation. These amendments have been made to the dataset in order to align with changes in clinical practice, to reflect recent organisational restructure (e.g. the introduction of Clinical Commissioning Groups), to provide further clarification of meaning or to fix minor errors. In addition, five new items are being introduced to enable a pilot feasibility project on the collection of SNOMED CT codes for specified procedure and pathology items.

Following the approval, a new version (version 1.2) of the COSD is now available which incorporates the above mentioned changes. For information on the changes, which are to be implementation from 1st April 2014, please review the updated COSD User Guide that has been published on the NCIN website. Further supporting documentation, including a revised specification and change request document are available from the ISB website.

As you previously requested a copy of the COSD schema documentation and in light of the above dataset changes, we are writing to advise you that a new version of the schema is now available. Please click here to download a copy of it.

This version of the schema continues the relaxation of the mandatory items agreed previously. The relaxation is an interim arrangement during the implementation phase of COSD and will be subject to review prior to 2015.

For more information, including reasons for the relaxation and how the official and relaxed schemas differ from a technical perspective please see the correspondence Relaxation of the COSD schema for mandatory data items that was circulated previously.

As before, the latest version of the relaxed schema omits mandatory data items which do not contain data. The modification to the schema allows zero minimum occurrence thus following the same rules applied to the required items. The relaxation does not apply to the Core Linkage items[1] which will still be mandated for all records submitted.

If you have any questions or queries regarding the above, please contact the COSD helpdesk (COSDenquiries at phe dot gov.uk link COSDenquiries@phe.gov.uk ) in the first instance.

Yours sincerely,

 

COSD Coordinating Team

National Cancer Intelligence Network

[1] NHS NUMBER and/or LOCAL PATIENT IDENTIFIER, NHS NUMBER STATUS INDICATOR CODE, PERSON BIRTH DATE, ORGANISATIONAL CODE (CODE OF PROVIDER), PRIMARY DIAGNOSIS (ICD), DATE OF DIAGNOSIS or DATE OF RECURRENCE