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• Ed Newlands, recently retired from Charing Cross sadly died suddenly in October. The ACP are making a donation in his memory to the "Cancer Treatment and Research Trust" which is a charity founded by Professor Newlands and his former colleagues. You can read his Times Obituary here.
• Patricia Hewitt and Mike Richards recently announced a new Cancer Reform Strategy. It all sounds a bit vague at the moment but you may want to read about it here and here in case you want to get involved.
• You can download presentations given by Alison Jones and Chrissie Thirlwell at the ACP AGM 2006 here. It includes information on ACP issues, manpower, training, new appointments.

Old News

• Funding opportunities for academic training can be found here

An ACP Committee meeting took place in June and the following was discussed:

• NCEPOD will be looking into deaths within 30 days of administering chemotherapy.
• The Medical Oncology Curriculum and provisional "Competencies in  Systemic Therapy" documents can be reviewed here and will be discussed at the AGM at the NCRI Annual Meeting. STCs will be involved in developing tumour-specific competencies.
• MRCP Part III in Oncology will probably be developed in the next year or so for lucky trainees to complete sometime before obtaining CCT. It will hopefully be an exam designed to test the basic level of knowledge required by a medical oncologist that should be passable by most trainees before the end of training.
• A directory of taught courses such as MSC should be compiled and the courses validated
• National Chemotherapy Advisory Group - The DoH wants guidance on: how chemotherapy services should be organised, what will happen to services in the future, how should out-of-hours cover be provided, national neutropaenic sepsis guidelines, how Commisioning and Payment by Results will work together
• National Clinical Excellence Awards: ACP can now make nominations
• Manpower: There are 233 trainees 45 of whom will obtain CCT in the next 12 months.
• The table below gives an analysis of current medical oncology consultants:

Joint Specialty Committee and ACP Committee meetings took place in March 2006. Agenda issues included:

• New Chairman Dr Alison Jones has taken over from Peter Clark.
• New Treasurer Dr Paul Ross has taken over as Treasurer of the ACP
• New Royal College Training Requirements If you are interested in checking out the sort of performance assessments trainees are soon going to have to take part in go to this section of the JCHMT website. Basically evaluation of patient consultations, chemo prescribing, procedures, 360 degree assessment (what people around you think of you) and a patient satisfaction questionnaire! Also a multi-choice exam is coming, possibly the ESMO exam.
• Workforce There has been a roughly 10% increase in medical oncology consultants per year. The number of trainees approximately equals the number of consultants and 30-50 are likely to obtain CCT in 2006/7. The majority of consultants are aged 40-44 yrs with only 8 over 60. If contracts are limited to 10 PAs and the EWTD is adhered to a substantial increase in consultant numbers will be required.
• Developing "Competencies in Systemic Therapies" A draft document of the requirements for various levels of competency has been produced by Helena Earl and Graham Darke and is out for consultation. This will provide a core part of training for medical oncologists. You can download it here in the next week or two.
• National Chemotherapy Advisory Group Work is continuing on 7 strands which include: Models of care, patient problems out of hours, neutropaenic guidelines, commissioning, and eprescribing.
• Modernising Medical Careers Structure looks to include 2 years of core medical training, followed by specialty training, and then a senior medical appointment which may include an open-ended sub-consultant grade.
• Management of NICE Consultations New processes are being discussed to co-ordinate responses to NICE consultations through the RCP on behalf of the RCP, NCRI Clinical Studies Group, ACP, RCR, JCCO, etc.
• National Patient Safety Agency The Faculty of Clinical Oncology seeks to encourage the use of the keywords radiotherapy and chemotherapy in reports to the NPSA to enable the identification of relevant incidents.

Other News:

• You may be interested to learn about NHS expenditure on anticancer drugs that came up at a recent ACP Committee meeting: