NHS Recovery Plan: annual progress update

Cancer Care

Cancer remains a priority for NHS Scotland, and we are committed to ensuring those with a suspicion of cancer are seen and treated as quickly as possible to reduce patient anxiety, improve experience and meet cancer waiting times (CWT) standards.

Steps we have taken

Our National Cancer Plan has delivered:

• Funding for 12 pilot sites to offer patients a single point of contact.
• Over £17m of new funding, including resources to improve cancer diagnosis and treatment.
• Support patients with information and guidance through the Covid-19 pandemic, including a patient leaflet and guidance on outpatient visiting.
• A new National Radiotherapy Plan, ensuring continued access to patients to modern radiotherapy treatments.
• Establish a Scottish Cancer Network in order to deliver a ‘Once for Scotland’ approach to cancer services.
• New guidance on the safe delivery of chemotherapy is currently under review and due to be finalised imminently.

We have launched the first three Rapid Cancer Diagnostic Services (RCDS), formerly known as Early Cancer Diagnostic Centres. These will provide equitable access to rapid cancer diagnosis, offering a fast-track diagnosis service through primary care, ensuring patients with non-specific symptoms get onto the right pathway earlier. This benefits not only those diagnosed with cancer, but other conditions which require treatment.

University of Strathclyde will evaluate the RCDS over a two year period; however, initial indications show around 16% of patients seen have been diagnosed with cancer and 20% with significant but non-cancer conditions. Importantly, patient satisfaction is high with over 97% of patients rating their experience as very good or excellent.

In addition, we published the Framework for Effective Cancer Management in December 2021 to provide Health Boards with the tools to effectively manage cancer patients and recover waiting times by promoting best practice, alongside hands-on expert support.

Steps we are taking

Over this term of Parliament, we have committed to investing an additional £40 million in targeted improvements designed to maintain the 31 day standard and achieve the 62 day standard on a sustainable basis. To date, this investment has supported Boards to deliver additional diagnostic clinics and theatre provision for those most challenged cancer pathways including urology, breast and colorectal while investing in pathway redesign and upskilling of our nursing workforce.

We continue to invest in our Detect Cancer Early (DCE) Programme, which adopts a whole-systems approach to diagnosing and treating cancer as early as possible, with a focus on those from areas of deprivation. This Programme supports the delivery of optimal cancer diagnostic pathways and awareness campaigns to empower those with possible symptoms to act early.

NHS staff are working incredibly hard for cancer patients and over the past year (1 July 2021 to 30 June 2022), a total of 25,096 patients were treated on the 31 day pathway with a median wait of 5 days from decision to treat to treatment (Q2 2022). We are also seeing increasing numbers of patients coming through our most urgent 62 day cancer pathways with over 4% more patients treated on a 62 day pathway in the most recent quarter compared to the same period prior to the pandemic.

We also continue to roll out the Macmillan partnership. By the end of 2021, agreements were in place across 26 of the 31 Health and Social Care Partnership (HSCP) areas. Of these, 12 services are operational, scoping has commenced in 6 other areas, and the process for recruiting the project leads to cover 8 areas has been initiated. Discussions are being taken forward to establish Improving the Cancer Journey (ICJ) developments in the remaining 5 areas.

Steps we will take

Patients, particularly those with less survivable cancers are benefiting from a number of our £114.5m National Cancer Plan flagship actions.

While progress is being made against the actions, we will reflect upon ongoing service pressures and complete the actions by March 2023.

To ensure NHS Scotland continues to deliver quality cancer care, we will continue to invest in our people and infrastructure including oncology, using national approaches to maximise capacity and patients’ access to treatment. For example, Consultant Oncologists have increased by 3.5% and Consultant Radiologists have increased by 3.3%.

The Scottish Cancer Network will also deliver new national clinical management pathways, setting out the standards of care and treatment patients should expect across Scotland. We will continue to support Boards to direct funding to where it is needed most to ensure that cancer patients in Scotland receive timely care.