TY - JOUR
T1 - Transforming post pandemic cancer services
AU - Round, Thomas
AU - Purushotham, Arnie
AU - Sethuraman, Lakshman
AU - Ashworth, Mark
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2024.
PY - 2024/5/3
Y1 - 2024/5/3
N2 - This paper outlines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cancer services in the UK including screening, symptomatic diagnosis, treatment pathways and projections on clinical outcomes as a result of these care disruptions. A restoration of cancer services to pre-pandemic levels is not likely to mitigate this adverse impact, particularly with an ageing population and increased cancer burden. New cancer cases are projected to rise to over 500,000 per year by 2035, with over 4 million people living with and beyond cancer. This paper calls for a strategic transformation to prioritise effort on the basis of available datasets and evidence-in particular, to prioritise cancers where an earlier diagnosis is feasible and clinically useful with a focus on mortality benefit by preventing emergency presentations by harnessing data and analytics. This could be delivered by a focus on underperforming groups/areas to try and reduce inequity, linking near real-time datasets with clinical decision support systems at the primary and secondary care levels, promoting the use of novel technologies to improve patient uptake of services, screening and diagnosis, and finally, upskilling and cross-skilling healthcare workers to expand supply of diagnostic and screening services.
AB - This paper outlines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cancer services in the UK including screening, symptomatic diagnosis, treatment pathways and projections on clinical outcomes as a result of these care disruptions. A restoration of cancer services to pre-pandemic levels is not likely to mitigate this adverse impact, particularly with an ageing population and increased cancer burden. New cancer cases are projected to rise to over 500,000 per year by 2035, with over 4 million people living with and beyond cancer. This paper calls for a strategic transformation to prioritise effort on the basis of available datasets and evidence-in particular, to prioritise cancers where an earlier diagnosis is feasible and clinically useful with a focus on mortality benefit by preventing emergency presentations by harnessing data and analytics. This could be delivered by a focus on underperforming groups/areas to try and reduce inequity, linking near real-time datasets with clinical decision support systems at the primary and secondary care levels, promoting the use of novel technologies to improve patient uptake of services, screening and diagnosis, and finally, upskilling and cross-skilling healthcare workers to expand supply of diagnostic and screening services.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85187878973&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41416-024-02596-9
DO - 10.1038/s41416-024-02596-9
M3 - Article
C2 - 38491174
AN - SCOPUS:85187878973
SN - 0960-1643
VL - 130
SP - 1233
EP - 1238
JO - British Journal of General Practice
JF - British Journal of General Practice
IS - 8
M1 - 130(8)
ER -
