The following document has been produced this year to supersede the old ACPGBI Minimum Dataset Document. It specifies the 38 items that any unit treating bowel cancer needs to submit for inclusion in the ACPGBI/NBOCAP National Audit of Bowel Cancer (The Silver Book).

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It is vital that any units submitting data for inclusion in the audit follow the definitions set out in this file. All data items have to be submitted in the format specified and users must check their files before submitting them as we are no longer allowed to correct inconsistencies in the files (Data Protection Act). This is especially important where dates are concerned. We urge users to check, double check and check again that these are correct!!! Consider the following real examples:

Is example 1 really a LOS of over a year? Is the whole discharge date correct or is date of surgery correct?  You would think correcting the date of discharge in example 2 to the year 2004 is correct, but that would make the discharge date 10-months before surgery, so should the year for discharge be changed to 2005 or is the date of surgery wrong?  In example 3 it is impossible to say which date is correct. The same is true for DATE OF DEATH and other dates in the system. This poses immense problems when calculating base mortality rates for example.

We are not allowed to change the dates for you even if it is an obvious mistake such as '2077' for '2007' and as such any inconsistencies such as the above will be marked as 'missing' leading to incomplete results for your unit. Similar problems occur when units code [for example] a temporary colostomy after a total colectomy and IRA - both data items then have to be marked as missing as it is not clear which is correct and as mentioned above we are not allowed to change them.