5.11 To help cancer networks reshape the services they provide to ensure fast, efficient, streamlined care, the new NHS Modernisation Agency will lead the roll out of the Cancer Services Collaborative to all cancer networks over the next two years. The new resources for cancer announced in the NHS Plan will support this initiative.
The Cancer Services Collaborative
The Cancer Services Collaborative is a national initiative to improve the expertise and outcomes of care for patients with suspected or diagnosed cancer by optimising systems of care delivery. Nine cancer networks have taken part in the first phase of the programme which commenced in September 1999. The second phase of the programme, commencing in April 2001, will include every cancer network in the NHS.
The Cancer Services Collaborative has shown that delays in getting treatment for people with cancer are often caused by the way that the system for delivering care is organised. By redesigning the system, significant improvements can be made. Teams within the nine networks taking part in the Cancer Services Collaborative are redesigning services for patients with suspected and diagnosed breast, bowel, lung, ovarian and prostate cancer. Many of the projects have been able to demonstrate reduction in time to diagnosis and/ or time to treatment of weeks or even months. A major emphasis of the Cancer Services Collaborative is on redesigning services from the patient perspective, building skills for improvement, and on multidisciplinary teams working together to diagnose problems and make effective and sustainable changes.
At the Central Middlesex Hospital, the West London and Environs Cancer Collaborative Team have demonstrated that through multi-disciplinary team working and pre-scheduling of diagnostic investigations they can reduce the wait from first appointment to the start of treatment for patients with lung cancer from 28 to eight days.
5.12 This means that all cancer networks will be able to draw on work already carried out by cancer clinicians on what works best for different tumour groups, and on tackling the key bottlenecks on the way to diagnosis (in particular radiology and pathology) and treatment (radiotherapy).
