Online care pathways for cancer developed

The NHS Cancer Services Collaborative ‘Improvement Partnership’ (CSCIP) has developed a national electronic information pathway designed to point cancer patients and health professionals towards relevant and useful information, whatever the stage of the illness.

The site, which was developed using feedback from patients, GPs and cancer care specialists, is continually updated and is based on best practice guidance.

Ian Maidment, national manager for patient information at the CSCIP, told E-Health Insider that one advantage of the system was its immediate availability online: "It’s all very well in practice prescribing information but we need to be able to have a silo of information that we can electronically tap into."

"Patients and carers can go in and look at this now, support groups can go in and look so they can provide better support, and GPs can go in and look so that they have a set of information to offer their patients before they leave the surgery."

Links are provided to a wide range of sites, from NHS Direct, Prodigy and DirectGov to cancer charity sites such as Macmillan Cancer Support, Cancerbackup, CancerHelp UK, Marie Curie and the Roy Castle Lung Foundation.

Users select the topic from a menu on the left hand of the screen, which shows different types of the illness and also aspects such as palliative care and cancer in young people and children.

A relevant pathway then appears in the main window. Each stage contains links to background information; for example, screening programmes and symptoms for prevention and financial advice and information on travelling abroad on diagnosis.

Maidment added that he hoped that the cancer pathway system would be linked in the future to HealthSpace, and that patients would be able to access links and information directly from their online record.

The CSCIP is a national NHS Programme that covers all 34 cancer networks in England, and has been running since April 2001.

Links

Cancer Services Collaborative ‘Improvement Partnership’: Patient Information Pathways