How does the Diagnosis and Treatment Programme team work?
Our team
Our team is made up of a programme and project leads supporting the array of programmes that we work on.
Our team has considerable NHS experience with both clinical and admin backgrounds both in commissioning and operational delivery of services and pathways.
Who do we work with?
We work with our three providers: Barts Health; Barking Havering and Redbridge University Trust; and Homerton Healthcare.
We also work with a range of partners who add value through innovation, technology, research and insight to help improve outcomes for patients. Partners include: Cyted, Medtronic, Medial Sign, QMUL (ASHN), Innovex partners.
What do we do?
We have two elements which the team focuses on: Diagnosis of cancer and Treatment for cancer.
Our work starts following the referral into hospital, at which point the clock starts for a patient to have a decision within 28-days whether they have cancer or not. There are quite a few areas that are difficult to complete with the difficulties in resource and support within the healthcare system. We try and support this by:
- Mapping the pathway with our providers to identify issues that cause a delay in your care and decision making
- Identifying solutions from other organisations and identifying potential technology that might resolve some of the issues identified.
The second area is the treatment variation. This is developing as initially this was focused on a review in the lung pathway but in 2023/24 this expanded to breast, prostate and bowel cancers. The aim is to review our performance on some of the key treatments in north east London based on the national requirements to consider if patients receive the same options of treatment irrespective of where they live or any of the protected characteristics.
We want to measure ourselves against what is being done nationally; to ensure that locally we are delivering the best possible care for our residents.
Visit our diagnosis and treatment projects webpage to see a full list of projects that we are currently working on.
What is the governance?
We have a Programme Delivery Group that meets regularly as a core element to delivering the programme. This is chaired by Dr Angela Wong, the Chief Medical Officer of the North East London Cancer Alliance. Cancer teams from each of our providers also attend.
We also have a series of Expert Reference Groups, representing each tumour group, which bring together relevant colleagues from across north east London to identify relevant issues and provide expert advice across the whole pathway.
Find out more
For more information, visit the Diagnosis and Treatment Programme webpage. If you have a question, email the team at nelondonicb.nelcanceralliance@nhs.net