Report on developing radiotherapy services in England
17 May 2007 London, UK. The National Radiotherapy Advisory Group has published a report
on meeting the needs for radiotherapy services in England. The report says
current reorganisation needs to be completed, but that there is still a need
to increase services to meet current and future demand, there should be
greater choice and there is a need for more community based services. The group was led
by Professor Mike Richards, the national cancer director, and Dr Michael
Williams the vice president of the Royal College of Radiologists. The
report acknowledges that radiotherapy services have seen improvements, with
double the number of staff training to be radiographers and heavy investment
in radiotherapy equipment. However, the report also found that:
- the need for radiotherapy services was significantly underestimated
by planners 15-20 years ago;
- as a result, despite positive actions the Government has taken over
recent years, there is a significant gap in radiotherapy capacity (both
in terms of equipment and staff); and
- cancer incidence will increase further due to a more elderly
population over the next 10 years.
The report concludes that to get the best results for cancer patients
reorganisation of services must be completed. Centralisation of
specialist services is completed in line with improving outcomes
guidance and that patient convenience is improved where possible by
making more services available locally.
Patients’ preferences must be respected and high quality care delivered
across the country and to all groups within society. However, all services
should provide value for money.
The report says that reorganising services is only the first step in
cancer reform. Other improvements needed include:
- get better at raising public awareness of cancer symptoms so that
patients come forward as soon as they have concerns about possible
symptoms — this will help to identify cancers early when they are more
likely to be treatable;
- increase capacity in areas such as radiotherapy where waits for
treatment after surgery can be long;
- offer patients greater choice based on reliable information;
- provide more community-based care for patients at the end of their
lives so that they have greater choice about where they live and die.
Professor Mike Richards, national cancer director, said: "We have
doubled the number of staff training to be radiographers and invested
heavily in radiotherapy equipment. However, we need more capacity, both
in terms of staff and equipment. This report is very helpful in setting
out how this could be achieved both in terms of using what we already
have more effectively but also in planning better for the future. "The problems that we are seeing now with
radiotherapy stem from a failure of planning 15-20 years ago. At that time
experts predicted that radiotherapy would not have a key role to play in
cancer care in the future and that demand would fall. As a result it was not
an area prioritised by the NHS for development and expansion. "I am
pleased that Ministers have taken this report seriously. With immediate
effect, they have committed £5 million of capital funding to support novel
training facilities recommended in the report. They have also asked that I
take the broader recommendations into account as I develop the Cancer Reform
Strategy, which will map the way forward for cancer services in England, and
that I bring the report to the attention of cancer networks so that they can
start to consider if the services they are delivering are as productive as
they could be."
The report can be downloaded (as a PDF file) from the UK Department of
Health website at:
www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/
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