Transforming Cancer Services Team newsletter: Autumn 2023

Welcome to our Autumn newsletter - highlighting the range of projects and programmes that the Transforming Cancer Services Team is currently working on in partnership with stakeholders to improve outcomes from cancer for Londoners and support the delivery of cancer services across London.

Key updates this time include: changes to standards measuring cancer waiting times by NHS England; an introduction to our upcoming project to improve the cancer pathway amongst the Bengali community; the launch of our new pan-London lymphoedema working group; and an overview of upcoming, cancer-related awareness events running throughout the Autumn season.

From 1 October, the standards measuring waiting times for cancer diagnosis and treatment are being modernised and simplified.

The NHS will move from the 10 different standards in place now to three:

Faster Diagnosis Standard: a diagnosis or ruling out of cancer within 28 days of referral (set at 75%);
31-day treatment standard: commence treatment within 31 days of a decision to treat for all cancer patients (set at 96%)
62-day treatment standard: commence treatment within 62 days of being referred or consultant upgrade (set at 85%)

A webinar discussing the role of FIT and how administrative staff can best support patients took place on 19 September.

Produced by GatewayC and supported by TCST, NHS England and the Greater Manchester Cancer Alliance Early Diagnosis Team, the webinar was attended by over 160 people from across England. Primary care specialists discussed the role of the Faecal Immunochemical Test (FIT) in early cancer diagnosis, the difference between screening and symptomatic FIT, how administrative staff can best support patients to complete and return a FIT, why samples are rejected and safety netting guidance.

There was also a Q&A session at the end for attendees to ask questions.

You can catch up with the webinar on-demand free here https://bit.ly/3rHAo1u (registration required).

A webinar for primary care clinical staff has been scheduled for 8 November 2023, 13:00 - 13:30. You can register here.

Following discussion at the last meeting of the Primary Care and Community Education Group (PCCEG) in July and with other key stakeholders, there was agreement that:
·     primary care and community education and training for personalised cancer care would be incorporated into the London Personalised Cancer Care Partnership Board;
·     training for early diagnosis would be incorporated into the Early Detection and Awareness Group (EDAG); and
·     there needs to be a renewed focus on better coordination, collaboration and communication about local training offers across ICS footprints. Members agreed to take this forward in their respective areas.

We’ll soon be kicking off a new project to improve the uptake of Faecal Immunochemical Testing (FIT) in the Bengali community across north east London.

Through the project, we’ll be working with staff at the Macmillan Centre at Newham Hospital to interview patients from the Bengali community who have been asked to undertake a FIT in the past six months. The aim is to better understand the needs of the local community and any barriers to acceptance that need to be addressed.

This first phase of interviews will run for a few weeks and the results analysed prior to launching phase two of the project.

TCST is launching a pan-London lymphoedema working group in collaboration with the Pan London Lymphoedema Community of Practice. The programme will build on the previous work addressing the needs of Londoners experiencing lymphoedema as a consequence of cancer treatment, and the workforce that deliver this essential service.

Focus areas that the group will be responsible for taking forward throughout 2023/24 include:

integration – developing a ‘model ICS’ showcasing good practice in early diagnosis and prevention and enhanced patient support;
workforce training and education;
strategic leadership to help influence local systems.

The first group meeting is currently being planned – further information will follow.
For more information and to register your interest, contact Yvonne Damanhuri.

We’ve recently updated the cancer data on our website to reflect the latest published figures for:

Data shows the case-mix adjusted percentage of cancers diagnosed at stage one and two for twenty-one malignant cancers in England in 2013-2020 by sub-ICB and Cancer Alliance respectively. The case-mix adjustment is for cancer site, age at diagnosis, sex and deprivation.

The cancer sites included are those with the highest completeness of staging information. For inclusion, there must be 1,500 cancers diagnosed annually in England with overall stage completeness of 70% or above.

Our next series of Cancer Waits and Best Practice Timed Pathways training will take place on 3 and 18 October via MS teams. Each session will last around one hour.

In light of the recent announcement by NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care on forthcoming changes to how cancer waiting times are measured and reported, we’ve adapted our training to draw reference to this.

Please email Sarah Cooper for more information and to register.

You can also access previous cancer waits training videos on our FutureNHS workspace. It’s quick and easy to register, and you’ll become part of a dynamic community of health and care professionals committed to improving cancer services and outcomes for patients across London.

Developing Quality Improvement approaches to improve patient outcomes across cancer services in London

18 October 2023, 08:50 – 13:00 (face-to-face event)

The next Cancer Community of Practice event will be hosted at the CLCH Academy in central London.

Designed specifically for general practice nurses, community nurses and Allied Health Professionals, the event will host guest speakers and community members talking about their own QI projects and the positive impacts on patients living with and after cancer.

For more information, contact Sandra Dyer or Register.

Supporting cancer screening in LGBTQI+ communities

15 November 2023, 12:30 – 14:00 (virtual event)

At this virtual event, we’ll be discussing the barriers for LGBTQI+ communities in accessing cancer screening and the research in this area. Guest speakers and community members will be talking about their own projects and examples that have improved outcomes for LGBTQI+ patients living with and after cancer.

For more information, contact Sandra Dyer or Register.

You can view recordings from previous Community of Practice events on the Transformation Partners in Health and Care YouTube channel.

On 18 September, NHS England launched another phase of the ‘Help Us, Help You’ campaign, focusing specifically on lung cancer symptoms. The campaign aims to increase knowledge of the key symptom of lung cancer – a cough that lasts three weeks or more - and encouraging those who have this symptom to contact their GP practice.

The campaign targets men and women over the age of 60, particularly those from C2DE socio-economic groups and Black and South Asian audiences, who traditionally have lower cancer survival rates.

The campaign will run across a range of channels until 22 October.

Stoptober is back this October with a new national campaign designed to encourage and support smokers to quit for good.

According to research by the London Tobacco Alliance, 11.5% of Londoners over the age of 18 years smoked cigarettes, which is lower than the national average of 13% (2021). However, there are wide variations across the city, ranging from 18.5% in Enfield to 6.6% in Camden.

Since its inception in 2012, Stoptober has successfully helped 2.5 million smokers to make a quit attempt.

GPs and other members of the primary healthcare team are in a unique position to provide advice and support to smokers, such as offering advice on smoking cessation or advising on appropriate support programmes and treatments.

If you have patients interested in quitting smoking or who you think may need advice and support, NHS England has a wide range of resources available that you can direct them towards on the Better Health Quit Smoking website.

Alternatively, search ‘Stoptober’ for more information or visit the Better Health Quit Smoking Website.