Living with cancer
39. We want patients and their families to be confident that they will receive the information, support and specialist care they need to help them cope with cancer, from the time that cancer is first suspected throughout the subsequent stages of the disease.
Good communication between health professionals and patients is essential. The NHS Plan will introduce new joint training across professions in communication skills. By 2002 it will be a pre condition of qualification to deliver patient care in the NHS that staff are able to demonstrate competence in communication with patients. And for cancer we shall give staff additional training in communication skills, and in the provision of psychological support. We will ensure that high quality written or other forms of information are available.
40. New funding, in partnership with the voluntary sector, will expand specialist palliative care services in the community, in hospital and in hospices, and tackle past inequalities, enabling cancer patients to live and die in the place of their choice wherever possible.
41. By 2004, the NHS will invest an extra £50 million in hospices and specialist palliative care. The Department of Health will agree with the voluntary sector the core services that should be available, so that more patients will have access to these services, and the NHS will make a more realistic contribution to the costs of voluntary hospices. NHS and voluntary sector services will work more closely together.
42. There will be a further New Opportunities Fund initiative for community palliative care services over the period 2001-2005.
Looking to the future
43. Much of this Cancer Plan is about catching up - about bringing resources and services in the NHS up to the levels experienced elsewhere in Europe. But it is also about investing in the future, and ensuring the NHS never falls behind again.
44. Investment in the staff of the NHS through education and development is critical to this.
45. And the research base will be strengthened:
- a new National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) will bring together all the key players in research in this country to identify where research is most needed and where it is most likely to contribute to progress
- the NHS will contribute to the NCRI through stronger support for clinical trials, supported by additional funding
- the NCRI will co-ordinate research into cancer genetics, with the aim of placing this country at the forefront in this rapidly evolving area.
