Radiotherapy Data Set
Providers of NHS-funded radiotherapy services are required to submit a monthly return on their delivery of radiotherapy treatments.
About this standard
- Publisher
- NHS England
- Also known as
- RTDS
- Reference code
- DAPB0111 Amd 84/2020
- Publication date
- 20/07/2021
- Status
- Active
Show definitions of statuses
Active. Active standards are stable, maintained and have been approved, assured or endorsed for use by qualified bodies.
Deprecated Deprecated standards are available for use and are maintained, but are being phased out, so new functionality will not be added.
Retired standards Retired standards are not being maintained or supported and should not be used.
- Standard type
- Collections
- Information standards
Show definitions of standard types
Collections. A Collection is a systematic gathering of a specified selection of data or information for a particular stated purpose from existing records held within health and care systems and electronic devices.
Extractions. An extraction is a type of collection that is pulled from an operational system by the data controller and transmitted to the receiver without additional processing or transcription by the sender.
Information standards. Information standards are agreed ways of doing something, written down as a set of precise criteria so they can be used as rules, guidelines, or definitions.
Technical Standards and specifications. Technical standards and specifications specify how to make information available technically including how the data is structured and transported.
- Contact point
Link to standard
- Documentation
- opens in a new tab
(opens in new tab)
- Applies to
- NHS acute providers of radiotherapy services.
- All other providers of NHS commissioned radiotherapy services.
- Purchasers of linear accelerator radiotherapy machines used in NHS cancer centres.
- Impacts on
- Implementation of this information standard impacts all developers and suppliers of health IT systems for use within NHS acute providers of radiotherapy services. Suppliers should work with their customers to determine necessary changes.
- Associated medias
- Conformance date
- 01/07/2022
- Effective from
- 31/03/2022
Topics and care settings
- Topic
- Data definitions and terminologies
- Reference data
- Care setting
- Hospital
Dependencies and related standards
- Dependencies
No known dependencies.
- Related standards
Review Information
- Scope
- NHS Services
- Sponsor
Dr Brian Rous, Director of Tumour Classification, Public Health England.
- Senior Responsible Officer
Sarah Stevens, Deputy Director, Public Health England
- Business Lead
- Andrew Murphy, Head of Cancer Datasets, Public Health England.
- Approval date
- 07/07/2021
- Post Implementation review Date
- 31/03/2023
Legal basis and endorsements
- Legal authority
Section 250 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012
This information standard is published under section 250 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012
NHS standard contract
This collection is published under the NHS Standard Contract.
More information
The purpose of the Radiotherapy Data Set is to:
- collect consistent and comparable data across all NHS acute trust providers of radiotherapy services and all private facilities where delivery is funded by the NHS
- provide nationally comparable data to inform the planning, provision and commissioning of radiotherapy services across the NHS.
It has been a mandatory standard since April 2009 and collects information for every patient receiving treatment of:
- external beam radiotherapy (teletherapy)
- brachytherapy
- proton therapy
- radioisotope therapy (including radioiodine)
- molecular radiotherapy.
Providers of radiotherapy services to the NHS are required to provide a monthly return to Public Health England on all activity.
The changes introduced by this release include:
- the ability to structure the data into pathways, including specific sections for:
- an episode
- a prescription
- a plan
- an exposure
- an attendance
- the addition of:
- SNOMED CT
- unique radiotherapy coding
- the measurement type to support the prescribed and the actual absorbed radiation dose
- improved recording in respect of:
- proton therapy
- clinical trials that have a component of radiotherapy delivery included
- treatment intent
- route of admission
- radiotherapy treatment type
- specialist radiotherapy treatments
- a new way of recording consultant information
- the removal of the intention to change to xml submission
- the addition of choices for linkage and radioisotope.
Other data items have been given better descriptions, amended formats or updated attributes to help improve both the data quality, ascertainment and linkage of data through the data set.
Page last updated: 30 July 2024