OBJECTIVES: Develop and categorise pharmaceutical care activities that contribute to the care of patients receiving cancer chemotherapy. METHODS: A retrospective survey of clinical records of pharmacists at six Scottish cancer treatment centres and units was undertaken where a standardised care plan (Macintyre et al. Development of a system for reporting pharmaceutical care issues in cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. Pharm J 2003;271:266-7) was utilised. Records were entered into an electronic version of the care plan and activities were recorded according to definitions by McAnaw (McAnaw JJ. Development of novel approaches to demonstrate the quality of drug therapy use. PhD thesis. Glasgow: University of Strathclyde. 2003). Categorisation system for pharmaceutical care issues was utilised and its reliability was assessed with Cohen’s Kappa. RESULTS: A total of 2737 pharmaceutical care issues were recorded from 729 patients receiving 3376 cycles of chemotherapy (0.8 care issues per cycle), 2711 care issues were categorised into Drug Therapy Problems (DTP's) as defined by Cipolle et al. (Cipolle RJ et a. Identifying, resolving, and preventing drug therapy problems: the pharmacist’s responsibility. In: Pharmaceutical Care Practice. New York: McGraw-Hill. 1998.). Reliability of the categorisation assessed with Cohen’s Kappa was found to be at least “good” (Kappa between 0.60 and 0.75) in all but one categories tested. The most common DTP addressed was “adverse drug reaction” (77%). Others included “dose too high/dose too low” (9%) and “additional medication needs” (8%). Care issues were also categorised as “checks” (67%) or “changes” (33%). Checks were mainly “verifications” prior to administration (75%) rather than ongoing “monitoring” (25%). Changes were “modifications” (49%), individualised “adjustments” (38%) or “prompted revisions” of the treatment (13%). CONCLUSIONS: Results show the system’s potential to promote standardised documentation of pharmaceutical care delivered to patients undergoing cancer chemotherapy as an important contribution to quality assurance in cancer chemotherapy.