Active and Advanced Disease: Prototype sites
Two of the NHS Improvement prototype sites testing Risk Stratification are recording the experience of care and quality of life for those patients with active and advanced lung cancer. The two sites Hull and Brighton are regularly assessing and care planning patients, recording their quality of life and also collecting data on the unplanned admissions and outpatient appointments saved by individualised care.
The hospitals are also collecting data related to the number of contacts in the care pathway and this is supported by a hand held diary used by the patients to record the number of health and social care contacts that they have in their care pathway.
This project is descriptive with the primary aim of collecting data to define:
- The extent of multi-agency support provided to lung cancer patients.
- The self-reported quality of survival.
- Key components or patterns of care that enhance duration and quality of care and survival.
- Baseline measurements on which to base future service improvement programmes.
In addition to data collection, as part of the evaluation of risk-stratified care pathways, the following data will be collected:
- Patient completed record of contacts with health and social care professionals.
- Patient reported assessment of quality of survival.
- Details of patient’s health status, support and interactions with health professionals will be collected by a project field worker.
- Details of patient’s contacts with community based health and social care professionals, including voluntary organisations (e.g. hospices and their community teams) collected by the field worker.
The project aims to identify the interventions that the patient benefits from and the improvements that could be made to refine the care pathway to provide a co-ordinated, seamless pathway that addresses the patients’ individual needs with active and advanced disease.
For further details of the prototype testing for the NHS Improvement test sites go to www.improvements.nhs.uk/cancer. Otherwise further information regarding prototype testing can be seen in the Effective follow up: Testing risk stratified pathways booklet or contact Noeline Young at nyoung@macmillan.org.uk .
Last updated on June 9, 2011