York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust have developed and launched a Cancer Treatment Summary document.
The Treatment Summary is a document produced by secondary cancer care professionals at the end of a patient’s treatment. The summary is given to the person affected by cancer and will be shared with their GP.
It provides important information, including information about side effects and/or consequences of treatment, signs and symptoms of a recurrence and any actions needed to be taken by the GP.
Treatment Summaries facilitate a standardised and consistent approach to sharing crucial information between primary and secondary care and the person living with cancer. It helps inform the Cancer Care Review discussion between patient and GP and ensures that GPs are aware of the patients’ current circumstances following treatment.
Treatment Summaries can be used and shared with other healthcare professionals.
Bianca Cipriano, Macmillan Recovery Package Project Manager for York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, said:
“The process of developing this document has seen considerable collaboration between various departments, organisations and people affected by cancer. It has been time consuming but worthwhile however the final document utilises existing information and pre-populates the documentation. The Treatment Summary is personalised and sits alongside other interventions, such as the Holistic Needs Assessments & Care Planning to support self-management.”
Alison Cockerill, Living with and Beyond Programme Manager for Humber, Coast and Vale Cancer Alliance, said:
“York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust are to be commended for developing and making Treatment Summaries available for all cancer patients going forward.
The development of the Treatment Summaries was supported by the provision of Transformation Funding from the Living With and Beyond Cancer programme. Recognising the importance and the scale of the challenge of developing treatment summaries for all patients with cancer regardless of the tumour site and treatment, the trust’s Living with and Beyond team were able to use Cancer Alliance Transformation Funding to provide dedicated IT time to enable the work to take place.
This is just one example of the implementation of the Living With and Beyond Cancer programme which are taking place across Humber, Coast and Vale Cancer Alliance and contributes to our vision of ‘Achieving world class cancer outcomes for our communities’.”
