Recent achievements
The ICB Cancer team works in close partnership with SELCA and as such has aligned outputs, please see further details on the SELCA team here which also highlights some recent achievements within the sector for Cancer.
Managing Demand for Cancer Services
Since the pandemic, there have been significant changes in patterns of referrals for suspected cancers in South East London and the ability of services to manage this demand. This has a number of causes, from changes in when and how patients present to their GP in order to initiate a referral, to the impact of the pandemic on capacity within services, and the drive for the NHS to ‘catch-up’ on activity that was drastically reduced during the heights of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Given this, it is more important than ever that our services are able to plan their capacity effectively to manage expected growth and ensure that patients are seen within expected waiting times.
To support this, the SEL ICB Cancer Team has produced a ‘Cancer Referral Demand Planning Tool’ which is now available online to all teams across all hospital sites and Trusts in South East London. This uses data and modelling approaches recommended and endorsed by NHS England to provide a single, system solution to support cancer referral demand planning. This has been used to support service developments, facilitate discussions on mutual aid between Trusts and provide equitable, evidence-based planning practices across SEL.
Further information
For further information please contact the Cancer team via email on: