30th September 2022
In September 2021 Cheshire & Merseyside Cancer Alliance commissioned the TU to undertake an end-to-end pathway review across all gynaecological cancer services, including symptomatic cervical, ovarian, vaginal, vulval and endometrial cancers. The overall aims were to help providers achieve challenging cancer standards, and to support the delivery of the NHS Long-Term plan including the Faster Diagnosis Programme (FDP) by 2024.
More than 90 stakeholders participated via several engagement routes, including workshops involving cancer, diagnostic and tertiary units, 1:1 meetings, surveys, and workshops across 15 organisations. The review initiated a large-scale transformation programme across all gynaecological cancer services.
The Challenge
Cheshire & Merseyside Cancer Alliance (CMCA) commissioned the TU to undertake a review of gynaecological cancer services across the alliance footprint in September 2021. The last full review of gynaecology cancer services in Cheshire and Merseyside was more than 20 years ago. The purpose of the work was to support the delivery of the NHS Long-Term Plan, including the delivery of the Faster Diagnosis Programme (FDP) by 2024.
Our Approach
We used a mixed methods approach to review stakeholder feedback, data, guidance, service configuration, workforce, current practice, and transformational opportunities for symptomatic cervical, ovarian, vaginal, vulval and endometrial cancers (both suspected and diagnosed) from patient presentation in primary care through to diagnosis and First Definitive Treatment. We engaged more than 90 stakeholders in the review process, across 15 organisations.
We developed a proposed model of care, mission, vision and 40 recommendations to inform short, medium and long term aims of the service, to be delivered through a Gynaecology Cancer Programme by CMCA across a range of themes.
The Outcome
To engage stakeholders with our conclusions and gain support for delivery, we presented the outputs of our work at a regional event with over 130 people attending.
Our work has been shared with wider stakeholders including Macmillan, Cancer Research UK and Ovarian Cancer UK. Ovarian Cancer UK have been particularly supportive of our approach and presented on our work at their national transformation meeting. CMCA have taken the recommendations forward into an improvement plan for the system which is currently underway with the first year’s priorities agreed by a new CMCA Gynaecology Cancer Programme Board.