Richard Simcock, Chief Medical Officer at Macmillan Cancer Support, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“When Macmillan Cancer Support contributed to the NHS England Cancer Plan we wanted to ensure that the experience of cancer was valued, measured and improved alongside the outcomes of cancer. Quality of life given parity with survival. We were pleased that the plan recognises this, with commitments towards holistic needs assessment and personalised plans.
An important part of understanding need is what the patient tells you, not what the doctor measures, and that is why Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) are so important.
PROMs have a strong evidence base but weak implementation and their use in the UK in cancer (outside of research ) is patchy at best.
That’s why today Macmillan Cancer Support convened a UK wide group of healthcare professionals who have been working to implement PROMs. The group included academics, early adopters and those working through implementation. Our mission for the day was to describe a road-map to successful PROMs adoption in the UK system. We worked the room hard and on such a hot day it wasn’t too bad to be in a windowless basement (with the A/C cranked up).
Our outputs from several hours of shared work will be a description of the ‘must-win battles‘ and we’ll share that when ready. Our NHS is full of competing priorities and clinical work often stands in front of service improvement. If we can facilitate smoother implementation we will be making cancer care fairer everywhere.
What do you think the biggest obstacles to PROMs adoption in the UK are?”
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