TY - JOUR
T1 - Practicalities, challenges and solutions to delivering a national organisational survey of cancer service and processes
T2 - Lessons from the National Prostate Cancer Audit
AU - Dodkins, Joanna
AU - Morris, Melanie
AU - Nossiter, Julie
AU - van der Meulen, Jan
AU - Payne, Heather
AU - Clarke, Noel
AU - Aggarwal, Ajay
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2022/9
Y1 - 2022/9
N2 - Organisational surveys are a critical process to assess the configuration and availability of services within health care systems. Cancer service organizational surveys enable understanding of variation in structure, processes and outcomes of cancer care according to the availability of facilities and their geographical organisation. This is critical for evaluating the delivery of cancer care services across a specified region. Furthermore, the organisational survey provides essential information about patient support services which can be used to inform patients where particular allied health services are available. The National Prostate Cancer Audit (NPCA) is an audit of all prostate cancer services in England and Wales. The NPCA encompasses all prostate cancer diagnostics, treatments (including surgery, radiotherapy and systemic therapy) and allied services. The NPCA conducted an organisational survey in 2021 via an online questionnaire sent to the prostate cancer clinical leads within each of the 138 NHS providers and we had a response rate of 93 %. There are many challenges to conducting an organisational survey and gaining a high completion rate is still difficult. The challenges that the NPCA faced included accuracy, completion, duplicates and discrepancies in responses. From this experience, we have developed some suggestions for the practical delivery and development of future organisational surveys. It was thanks to the use of many of these strategies, and the engagement of clinicians with the NPCA, that we were able to achieve such a high response rate. Despite these challenges, the importance of organisational surveys of cancer services is demonstrated by the better understanding of structure, processes and outcomes of cancer care according to the accessibility of facilities and their geographical organisation. This is essential for evaluating and improving the delivery of cancer care services across a region.
AB - Organisational surveys are a critical process to assess the configuration and availability of services within health care systems. Cancer service organizational surveys enable understanding of variation in structure, processes and outcomes of cancer care according to the availability of facilities and their geographical organisation. This is critical for evaluating the delivery of cancer care services across a specified region. Furthermore, the organisational survey provides essential information about patient support services which can be used to inform patients where particular allied health services are available. The National Prostate Cancer Audit (NPCA) is an audit of all prostate cancer services in England and Wales. The NPCA encompasses all prostate cancer diagnostics, treatments (including surgery, radiotherapy and systemic therapy) and allied services. The NPCA conducted an organisational survey in 2021 via an online questionnaire sent to the prostate cancer clinical leads within each of the 138 NHS providers and we had a response rate of 93 %. There are many challenges to conducting an organisational survey and gaining a high completion rate is still difficult. The challenges that the NPCA faced included accuracy, completion, duplicates and discrepancies in responses. From this experience, we have developed some suggestions for the practical delivery and development of future organisational surveys. It was thanks to the use of many of these strategies, and the engagement of clinicians with the NPCA, that we were able to achieve such a high response rate. Despite these challenges, the importance of organisational surveys of cancer services is demonstrated by the better understanding of structure, processes and outcomes of cancer care according to the accessibility of facilities and their geographical organisation. This is essential for evaluating and improving the delivery of cancer care services across a region.
KW - Cancer services
KW - Challenges
KW - Configuration of services
KW - Health care systems
KW - Organisational surveys
KW - Patient support services
KW - Solutions
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85132837980&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jcpo.2022.100344
DO - 10.1016/j.jcpo.2022.100344
M3 - Article
C2 - 35724956
AN - SCOPUS:85132837980
SN - 2213-5383
VL - 33
JO - Journal of Cancer Policy
JF - Journal of Cancer Policy
M1 - 100344
ER -
