Paul Landau, chief executive and founder of Careology, explains why the National Cancer Plan needs to focus on driving efficiency to improve access to care, not just diagnostics.
While advanced imaging technologies, genetic screenings and biomarker tests have revolutionised our ability to detect cancer at its earliest stages, cancer does not end with diagnosis. Early detection is crucial for improving survival rates, but it’s just the beginning of a long and challenging road for many.
Even if it is encouraging to see that the government plans to improve diagnostics in the National Cancer Plan, an overwhelming focus on diagnostics has overshadowed a much-needed spotlight on improving access to care. With improved diagnostic services, NHS cancer treatment services are facing significant resourcing challenges, with mounting patient backlogs and increased demand for care.
Recent data shows that half a million people in England have had to wait longer than two months to begin essential cancer treatment after being diagnosed. Targets are failing to be met year on year with only 71.3% of people in England receiving their diagnosis and starting their treatment within 62 days. It is shocking to read a National Cancer Audit Collaborating Centre (NatCan) report which highlighted that that 34% of stage three colon cancer cases do not get chemotherapy within three months of surgery – with this number exceeding 60% at some hospitals.
These figures show starkly how limited clinical resources really are. Persistent operational inefficiencies, poor resource allocation and a lack of urgency in adopting technological solutions is stifling innovation and improvement of not only treatment, but care. It is crucial that the National Cancer Strategy focuses on tackling efficiency to improve access to care.
Care for people living with cancer is more than just receiving treatment. Once diagnosed, patients living with cancer require ongoing support to manage their treatment, side effects and overall well-being. Unfortunately, significant capacity issues hinder access to necessary rounded care.
How can these be addressed?
Integrating digital platforms into patient care
Ultimately, improving access to care means streamlining the patient pathway. While improving the general infrastructure and ensuring policies have cancer as front-of-mind are key factors, improving efficiency to free up resources is crucial. This can be achieved with the support of technology and digital platforms; not only to encourage seamless communications between all health professionals involved in a patient’s treatment and keeping patient data in one place, but also to tap into the efficiency that community care and remote monitoring offers.
Digital platforms can revolutionise the way that patients are treated and bridge gaps in access. Siloed data means that various healthcare teams manage different aspects of patient care and there is limited communication and data sharing between hospital and community. Platforms that cater to all areas of the cancer journey can enable better access to data across healthcare teams and locations, painting a complete picture of a patient’s condition. By holding data in one easily accessible and joined-up place, communication between various healthcare touchpoints – from general practitioners to oncologists, physiotherapists, clinicians, and surgeons – is streamlined. This results in more efficient care planning and delivery for patients.
What’s more, by optimising resource allocation through increased data, digital platforms can help clinicians decide on a treatment plan more quickly and improve patient outcomes.
In December last year, Cancer Research UK reported that 91.5% of people started treatment within 31 days of a doctor deciding a treatment plan – just 5% under the target. As long as technology offerings are used in tandem with human clinicians, to augment their capabilities and inform their decisions, they can help to unlock more efficient and effective treatment plans.
Enhancing patient data to improve patient autonomy
Patients are at the heart of the cancer care journey, so empowering them to advocate for their needs is paramount. Advocacy is not just about voicing concerns; it’s about being an engaged active participant in your own medical decisions. To do this, patients need to have access to detailed health data. Platforms that give patients a clear and up-to-date picture of their current situation and care plans help by making sure people are informed about their treatment and know when and where to seek help. This also promotes early intervention so problems can be intercepted before they become increasingly complex, time-consuming and cost-intensive to treat.
Integrating digital tools into patient care to centralise information massively lightens the load on patient management and enables them to have some autonomy throughout their health journey. They can collaborate with their healthcare teams to make decisions to align with their living situations, confidence, values, and financial circumstances. The need to be active in updating their own platform profile with symptoms and self-monitored data allows patients to feel they are playing a key role in their cancer journey and allows them to build up a more meaningful relationship with their healthcare professionals.
Leveraging community care
Finally, within the treatment of cancer in the UK, there is an opportunity for community cancer care and pharmacy to complement digital tools. Diagnostics within community care has come a long way with community diagnostics centres receiving more funding so patients who require magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or computed tomography (CT) scans can have these closer to home. There is still, however, untapped potential in leveraging community care and surgical hubs for treatment to prevent unnecessary trips to hospital.
By offering locally tailored support for patients, key stakeholders involved in managing complex treatment plans have better support remotely without having to make the trip to hospital. Although community care will not suit all people with cancer, for those who find the multiple trips to hospital costly and time-consuming, this will cut their waiting time for each phase of treatment.
Ultimately, while diagnostics remain a fundamental axis of cancer care, it is essential that we broaden our focus to include comprehensive care strategies that address the entire patient journey. By leveraging technology to streamline workflows and free up resources, empowering patients with accessible health data all in one place, and taking full advantage of the opportunity that community care offers, we can transition from a diagnostic-centric approach to a care-centric one, transforming the cancer care landscape and improving patient outcomes.
This certainly won’t be a quick and easy process but raising awareness of the transformative potential of digital solutions and enforcing necessary training to integrate them into current practices will be crucial.
