Improving cancer care pathways at Imperial College Healthcare
In February 2024, we kicked off a major programme to find out how we could make our cancer care pathways work better for patients and their families, drawing directly on their views and ideas as well as those of our staff and care partners. While our clinical outcomes continue to be good, we noted increasing concerns about poor communications and coordination of care. We also wanted to do more to respond to an increase in referrals and new diagnoses, fully reset pathways that had been adapted during the COVID-19 pandemic and make the most of continuing advances in cancer diagnosis and treatment.
We have now completed the first ‘discovery’ phase of the programme – drawing on feedback and working with patients, families, staff and care partners to discuss and understand the problems and their root causes, as well as opportunities for improvement.
We have published the summary of these insights, produced by the Helix Centre, part of Imperial College London’s Institute of Global Health, who are supporting the programme on co-design with patients and the public. The programme steering group is chaired by our chief executive supported by the programme leads, our chief operating officer and lead cancer clinician, and includes patients with lived experience as well as care partners, such as a local GP and our local cancer alliance, RM Partners.
What we have found so far
Key themes:
- detection and diagnosis: delays in diagnostics; patients feeling overwhelmed by information; diagnoses given poorly; families needing more support
- treatment and follow-up: some delays in starting treatment; poor follow-up care; inconsistent access to treatment
- communication and coordination: Unclear communication; problems with appointments; overly complex care pathways.
With further input from patients and staff, the programme team has prioritised these insights into three primary areas for action:
- patient information and experience: we’ll make sure patients have clear information and one main point of contact. This includes support from nurse specialists, psychologists, and health professionals. We’ll also improve the care environment
- cancer pathways and processes: we’ll make sure care is joined up, with smoother pathways, and fix delays
- support for our staff: we’ll ensure they have a better working environment, more wellbeing support, and the right resources to do their jobs well.
Next steps
The programme team is now underway with phase 2 of the programme, to develop a comprehensive improvement plan that responds to the insights, and ensuring improvements:
- are co-designed with patients, families, staff and care partners
- are data-driven and measurable
- reflect diverse needs and support our wider efforts to improve health equity.
There will be some immediate improvements we can make this financial year while others will take longer as they will require more planning and investment. We will publish our improvement plan early next year.
It is really important that we continue to gather feedback from patients and families. There are many ways you can do this, summarised here on our website. The NHS also runs a National Cancer Patient Experience Survey every year. Their survey provider is writing to patients around the country who were treated for cancer, and left hospital in April, May or June 2024, to ask them to take part in the survey. This phase of the survey process will be completed by February 2025. We would be very grateful if you could complete a survey if you are invited to take part. All this feedback will help us to continue to improve our services.
