Matt Sample, Senior Health Policy Manager at Cancer Research UK (CRUK), shared on LinkedIn:
“After being diagnosed with cancer, nobody should have to worry about whether they’re being offered the best treatment options for them.
Yet evidence continues to show unwarranted variation in access to best practice cancer treatment across England. Some patients are more likely to receive recommended treatments than others, and treatment rates for some interventions remain lower than in comparable countries.
This article from my brilliant colleague Holly Norman explores the National Cancer Plan’s commitments towards reducing treatment variation and considers what further action is still needed.
The Plan includes important commitments, including strengthening cancer MDTs, developing new Cancer Manuals to define standards of care, supporting local quality improvement efforts and accelerating access to innovations in surgery, genomics and radiotherapy.
But delivering meaningful change will require a sustained, system-wide approach that combines national leadership with local improvement, robust data, sufficient treatment capacity, and long-term investment in Cancer Alliances’ role in service improvement and innovation.
As the NHS and Government move into the implementation phase of the National Cancer Plan, reducing unwarranted treatment variation must remain a priority if we are serious about improving cancer outcomes and achieving world-leading survival.
Big thanks to Holly for the great insight in this article, and to Samantha Harrison, Lyndsy Ambler and Naser Turabi who I know did a lot to shape the perspectives in it.”
To which Neil Bayman, Deputy Chief Executive Officer and Executive Medical Director at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, added:
“A really important piece from Cancer Research UK on unwarranted variation in cancer care.
I agree with much of what is described but challenge the idea that greater specialist-centre care inevitably means patients travelling further for treatment.
There is another model which concentrates the expertise but not every episode of care.
This has been our approach at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust for the last 20 years where we have built a networked model of specialist cancer services delivered closer to people’s homes across Greater Manchester and East Cheshire. We are now going much further through a new model of care called Neighbourhood Oncology. Complex care, specialist decision-making, research and clinical governance remain anchored in specialist cancer expertise, while much more treatment, acute and supportive care can happen in people’s homes and closer to home.
The future is local specialist care, delivered via specialist cancer centres extending their expertise across populations and into neighbourhoods, with common standards and pathways, so that patients receive the same world-class care regardless of postcode.
Reducing variation through specialist expertise delivered locally wherever possible – designing cancer care around people’s lives.”
This also can be interesting:
