Re: National Cancer Diagnosis Audit

Dear Colleague,

RE: NATIONAL CANCER DIAGNOSIS AUDIT

Background

Cancer Research UK, partnered with the Royal College of General Practitioners and Macmillan Cancer Support is co-ordinating a national cancer diagnosis audit to inform the UK early diagnosis agenda, in line with the National Cancer Taskforce recommendations. The National Cancer Diagnosis Audit will provide new insights that will inform service improvements that in turn help to diagnose cancers earlier and improve cancer outcomes.

Objectives of the audit

The audit uses primary and secondary care data relating to patients diagnosed with cancer and will start this year by looking at diagnoses made in 2014, in order to understand patterns of cancer diagnosis for all cancer types, across the UK.

The audit looks specifically at clinical practice in order to understand:

1.  interval length from patient presentation to diagnosis

2.  use of investigations prior to referral

3.  what the referral pathways for patients with cancer are and how they compare with those recorded by the cancer registry

Following the audit, a national report with practice and CCG level feedback will be published, along with tools and resources for local clinical improvement. Support for clinical improvement activities will be available from CRUK’s Health Professional Engagement Facilitators.

Purpose of letter

The purpose of this letter is to make you aware of the opportunity to get involved in the National Cancer Diagnosis Audit.

We know that early diagnosis improves cancer outcomes for patients. The audit will play a key role in securing earlier diagnosis for cancer patients.

We recognise the workload pressures general practice is under. Whilst participation in the audit is voluntary for practices, I think this is really important for making improvements to clinical practice locally and would encourage practices to consider taking part.

One of the GPs involved in piloting the audit said:

“This is a quality review tool. It will help you review your practice’s processes and improve your care of patients with cancer. At the same time, it is a good way to demonstrate quality improvement in an important area for your appraisal and revalidation, as well as bodies like CQC”.

Benefits to GP practices

Taking part in the audit will allow GP practices to:

·  Improve outcomes for their patients

·  Demonstrate quality improvement for GP appraisal, revalidation and CQC inspection

·  Identify patients for Significant Event Audits

·  Create improvement plans

·  Provide opportunities for case study discussion and peer learning – for complex cases

·  Create improvement plans from local feedback to improve patient care

·  Highlight diagnostic challenges and good practice

·  Measure clinical guideline impact

·  Influence local commissioning decisions, strategic priorities and service improvements

Timescale

The outline timetable is as follows:

·  Summer 2016: GP practice recruitment

·  Early Autumn 2016: data collection commences

·  Winter 2016-17: data analysis completed by the National Cancer Registration and Analysis Service

·  Spring 2017: report published and local resources created to support clinical improvement.

Further information

For more information, please see cruk.org/ncda

Yours sincerely,

[insert name]

Enc.

Source: Cancer Research UK (June 2016)

For further information or support around using this resource see please see cruk.org/ncda