The Association of Cancer Physicians

The NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement has carried out a project looking at how people who are admitted as emergencies and then turn out to have cancer are managed. This information can be used to optimise pathways of care. You can read the background to this work and the report Focus on: Sick Patients with Suspected Cancer which was published in June 2009. It provides a useful resource on which to base service improvement; an OncoAlert tool has been developed.

Dr Ernie Marshall, a medical oncologist based at Clatterbridge, works closely with Prof. Peter Clark who led development of the NCAG report. In the attached presentation kindly shared, he describes how they have set up an Acute Oncology service locally. Dr Pauline Leonard, based at the Whittington in London has also developed a local acute oncology servce and kindly supplied her updated presentation. Both of these resources will be useful for others planning to do the same in their region. UPDATE 23/12/2009: Dr Marshall has given a very useful interview to Doctors.net about Acute Oncology. Membership of Doctors.net is free to GMC registered medics and you can download the podcast here.

As a relatively new consultant I have found that the number of committees, quangos, reports and initiatives that exist can become a confusing mess. There are a few people who are in touch with what is going on politically, and a whole lot more who are pretty much in the dark. In this article I hope to summarise my understanding of some of the stuff you should know something about. Please contact me with corrections or updates.

The final version of the National Chemotherapy Advisory Group (NCAG), "Chemotherapy Services in England: Ensuring quality and safety" has been published. The group is co-chaired by ex-ACP Chair Peter Clark. The recommendations of the report will be a challenge for oncology services around the country. The NCEPOD report on deaths of patients within 30 days of chemotherapy was published in 2008. See the presentations from the Acute Oncology Annual Meeting for more information.

The report highlights 3 main areas:

• Provision of  chemotherapy services based on a care pathway approach
• Provision of emergency care for cancer patients through an “acute oncology service (AOS)”
• The organisational support around chemotherapy services

The key recommendations have been summarised here: