Modernising the Scottish Cancer Registry

Modernising the Scottish Cancer Registry to get the most out of cancer data.

As a first step towards developing the Scottish Cancer Intelligence Framework (SCIF), IHDP commissioned an external review of the Scottish Cancer Registry. This involved a range of stakeholders including the five Scottish cancer centres. The review aimed to discover what healthcare professionals needed to support better cancer services and improve outcomes.  

Following this, IHDP and Public Health Scotland (PHS), together with technical input from National Services Scotland (NSS) have been working together to enhance the Scottish Cancer Registry by adding many new data sources and improving processes. The result is the Scottish Cancer Registry and Intelligence Service (SCRIS) and its associated dashboards.

SCRIS dashboards

The dashboards allow faster and more flexible access to cancer data from across Scotland, supporting clinicians to provide better cancer services. Better cancer services result in improved cancer outcomes.  

The SCRIS dashboards, powered by NHS National Services Scotland Digital and Security (NSS DaS), were launched in May 2019 for NHS users. They were developed with extensive stakeholder and user feedback. At the same time, the accompanying analytical and intelligence service was expanded to optimise use of national cancer data.  

Data Virtualisation

The SCRIS dashboards use an innovative approach called Data Virtualisation (DV) to present data to users. Sets of data from various systems can be viewed through a ‘virtual window’. This removes the need to move or copy the data, reducing the problems associated with data transfer.

This article was published on 28 Nov, 2023