Thinking about changes to non-surgical cancer outpatient appointments
They are the people who meet with patients to discuss and agree treatment options, to review how treatment is going, and to plan future treatments.
In the past, there were enough of these specialist cancer clinicians in our area for them to see patients at five of our local hospitals.
More recently, the number of these cancer specialists has reduced as the number and range of available treatments has increased. We no longer have enough specialist staff to run outpatient appointments at all five hospitals. And our efforts to recruit new staff have not been as successful as we would have liked. Too often, patients’ appointments were delayed or cancelled at short notice.
In order to improve this for patients we reduced the number of places our specialist cancer clinicians see patients with some types of cancer. We did this because reducing the number of locations that the specialist cancer doctors had to travel to meant they had more time to see more patients.
For example, at the moment, when they have a face-to-fact outpatient appointment, patients with lower gastrointestinal cancer are seen at Weston Park Cancer Centre in Sheffield. These changes improved the availability of doctors and reduced the possibility of patient appointments being delayed or cancelled.
These temporary changes have been in place for some time. Now, we are reviewing where we provide these appointments for all non-surgical cancer patients. We want to hear from patients, carers, local residents, and staff, so we can be sure we’ve taken their views into account.
What people tell us will help us as we decide whether to make these changes permanent and make sure that we provide a model of care that has the needs of our patients, carers, staff and the public at its heart.
We want to hear from:
● Cancer patients and their carers so we can understand how changing where cancer patients go for these planning and review appointments with a cancer specialist affects them.
● More of our local residents, to understand what they think is important for patients when they attend these appointments, and what we should be taking into account as we think about these challenges. Join one of our online discussions to share your experience (see below for details)
This will help local doctors, nurses and service managers decide how to deliver these outpatient appointments in the future.
You can also complete our survey
More information on Cancer Care can be found from the South Yorkshire & Bassetlaw Cancer Alliance
