For programmes in England and Wales, there are two ways in which you can submit patient data to the NACR:
(a) By entering data directly into the national database.
(b) By entering data directly into a local database (clinical management system) and submitting data to NACR using the File Submission Dashboard on the database.
A local database can be defined as a database designed in-house (i.e. in Microsoft Access or Excel format), a hospital system (i.e. PAS) or a commercial system that has been developed by a third party and purchased by your organisation (i.e. Solus, Cardiobase, Dendrite, SystmOne).
Both methods require at least one person in your team to be registered to access the NACR database – to do this, you will need to complete a User Registration form (available in our User Resources section), and this will need to be authorised by your Caldicott Guardian. There is no limit to the number of staff you can register to access NACR, and no cost or licensing.
The NACR database can be found at https://clinicalaudit.hscic.gov.uk/
Support for data entry
Manual Data Entry
Online training is available via MS Teams and takes around one and a half hours.
If you are interested in arranging online or local in-person training, please contact nerina.onion@nhs.net.
Using File Submission (‘Importing’)
I would like to continue using our local database – how can I submit my data to NACR?
If you are using another database to collect your CR data, eg. designed in-house, or third party such as Solus, SystmOne. EPIC etc, you will need to contact your local IT/BI department in the first instance and ask them to write an export routine so that the patient data can be exported from the local database in the correct format, ensuring that all of the required dataset fields are included. Our dataset, containing required file formats and validation rules, is available from the User Downloads section of the website.
We recommend including the NACR team in initial and development meetings to ensure the files and data are suitable for upload, including some basic testing prior to data being uploaded to the database.
The NACR team may also be able to assist with information regarding some more widely used database by linking teams together who use the same system.
Once the file is available, how do I send the data to NACR
The patient data should be extracted from your database in the correct format, and imported into the national database using the ‘File Submission Dashboard’ section of the NACR database. There is a short ‘Importing User Guide’ available in the User Downloads section of the website.
How often to upload data
The submission of patient data can be done daily, weekly or monthly. This should be agreed with whoever is responsible for exporting and importing the data within your organisation. Ideally, we would recommend at least monthly.
Any questions with using the NACR database, please contact the NACR team:
Email: nerina.onion@nhs.net
Accessing your data for reports
There are three main ways of accessing the data held on NACR.
- Using the ‘Reporting’ area on the NACR database (login required) – these run specific summary reports on your live data.
- Extracts – the Extracts function in ‘Reporting’ is a way of downloading all your data from NACR, and this can be used – either in individual csv/excel files by record type, or linking these files – to analyse your data in more detail. The data structure for NACR is quite complex, due to the movement of patients across programmes – so any patient may have had input from a number of rehab programmes during their CR journey(s). The extracts themselves are therefore not simple downloads of data just for your programme, as they need to take in to account records that you have ‘touched’ or linked records to, as well as created (eg. Patient and Event records). So, when you input a date range to download you may still see data outside this date range, and records that have been created by other programmes. In order to use the extract data, it is important to understand the need to filter the data correctly to focus just on your CR activity. We therefore advise speaking to the NACR team in the first instance to ensure that the data you select is a) specific for your CR service and b) as accurate as possible.
- Bespoke reports run by our data analyst – we advise giving around two weeks notice for bespoke reports if possible.
Any questions please contact us:
Email: nerina.onion@nhs.net