Monitoring noncommunicable disease commitments in Europe: progress monitor indicators

This report from Macmillan argues that the health and care system is failing to support recovering cancer patients with the physical and emotional trauma following treatment. It argues that the lack of appropriate aftercare is also placing pressure on the NHS with as cancer patients have 60 per cent more A&E attendances and 50 per cent more contact with GPs, 15 months after diagnosis.

New quality of life measure for recovering cancer patients

In a world leading move, quality of life for cancer patients will be tracked as part of ambitious plans by NHS England to radically improve care and support for people once treatment ends.

The new ‘quality of life metric’, which is the first of its kind, will use questionnaires to measure how effective this support is and the data will be made available on My NHS – helping patients, the public, clinicians and health service providers see how well their local after cancer care support is doing.

Comparator report on patient access to cancer medicines in Europe revisited - a UK perspective

This report from the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) shows that the UK is trailing behind the rest of Europe in the treatment of cancer. It finds that British patients have worse survival rates after five years - the international benchmark for measuring the quality of cancer care – compared to the European average in nine out of ten cancers – only exceeding the EU average in melanoma

Geographic patterns of cancer survival, England: 2015

Survival at 1 year and 5 years after diagnosis improved for the 8 cancers examined in this report (colon, breast, cervix,prostate, oesophagus, stomach, bladder, lung) among adults diagnosed in England between 2003 and 2010. Differences in net survival between the 4 NHS Regions are generally small, of the order 1% to 3%. Survival improved slightly but consistently in all 4 regions for 7 of the 8 cancers.

Screening and management of late and long-term consequences of myeloma and its treatment

A growing population of long-term survivors of myeloma isnow accumulating the ‘late effects’ not only of myeloma itself, but also of several lines of treatment given throughout the course of the disease. It is thus important to recognise the cumulative burden of the disease and treatment-related toxicity in both the stable and active phases of myeloma, some of which is unlikely to be detected by routine monitoring.

We summarise here the evidence for the key late effects in long-term survivors of myeloma, including physical and psychosocial consequences (in Parts 1 and 2 respectively), and recommend the use of late-effects screening protocols in detection and intervention. The early recognition of late effects and effective management strategies should lead to an improvement in the management of myeloma patients, although evidence in this area is currently limited and further research is warranted.

National Lung Cancer Audit report 2016

A new report from the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) shows a 7% increase in the number of people diagnosed with lung cancer surviving for longer than 1 year, compared with results from 2010.

In addition, the National Lung Cancer Audit report 2016 reveals that 60% of lung cancer patients received anti-cancer treatment such as chemotherapy, radiotherapy or surgery, meeting the target set out in the 2015 annual audit report.

Index of cancer survival for clinical commissioning groups in England: adults diagnosed 1999 to 2014 and followed up to 2015

Data from the Office of National Statistics on 1-year cancer survival for all cancers combined, three cancers combined and for breast, colorectal, and lung cancer.

Gloucestershire Receives Award for Improvements in Cancer Diagnosis

NHS Gloucestershire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has received an award from the All Party Parliamentary Group on Cancer for its work to improve early diagnosis and one-year cancer survival rates.

Its initial focus was on delivering a large-scale education programme across GP services, and together with Macmillan, held a series of 17 very successful masterclasses. They subsequently developed a range of online resources, and have executed a quality improvement project which has given us useful learning through an audit of cancer diagnoses.

National Oesophago-Gastric Cancer Audit 2016

This HQIP report aims to give an overall picture of the care provided to patients with OG cancer or oesophageal HGD by NHS services. It provides information on the:

• Management of patients with HGD of the oesophagus
• Routes to diagnosis for OG cancer patients, and their staging investigations
• Treatment planning for OG cancer patients
• Patterns of curative surgery, admissions to intensive care,and short-term outcomes
• Use of radiotherapy in palliative treatment
• Longer term survival after diagnosis with OG cancer.

Cancer survival for adults in England: 2010 to 2014, followed up to 2015

1-year, 5-year and 10-year net survival for adults in England diagnosed with 1 of 24 common cancers between 2010 and 2014 and followed up to 2015, published by the Office for National Statistics.

Knowing you’re not alone: Understanding peer support for stroke survivors

Then Nuffield Trust's evaluation, which took place over 18 months, drew on the experiences and views of more than 200 stroke survivors and 100 carers from 30 local groups, as well as 20 Stroke Association staff and volunteers. The study included a questionnaire of stroke survivors and carers which captured self-reported measures of health and wellbeing; as well as interviews and focus groups with stroke survivors, carers, staff and volunteers.