Transforming local cancer care and treatment
Why do cancer services need to change?
Patients with cancer are living longer, which is good news. However, this means that there is more demand for cancer care and treatment. The number of cancer specialist doctors has not grown quickly enough to keep up with this growth in demand. This is a national issue.
The region has six hospital trusts, each of which employ their own cancer doctors and other specialists. This means that some teams are very small. This is not how cancer services are organised in the rest of the country.
Local NHS bosses asked the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Cancer Alliance to conduct a review to see how services might be delivered differently in the future. They developed some proposals based on what patients, doctors and other experts told them is important.
This survey is open to people across North Yorkshire who attend services in Harrogate or travel over to West Yorkshire for treatment.
If you attend other hospitals in North Yorkshire, or have any other health and social care experiences to share, we still want to hear your feedback.
What did the review cover?
- Anti-cancer drug treatments, such as chemotherapy.
- Outpatient clinics where you have appointments with the team managing your treatment.
- Care for patients who become unwell either because the cancer has progressed or because of a complication of their treatment. For some people, this could involve being admitted as an inpatient.
- Radiotherapy treatments.
The review did not look at surgical treatments, or cancer services for children.
What are the proposed changes?
Following the review, some changes to how services are delivered have been identified. The changes aim to maximise the amount of care which is provided close to patients’ homes. To do this, hospitals will work together and share specialists across the region. Some doctors will work across a number of hospitals.
Anti-cancer drug services, for example chemotherapy
- All hospitals in West Yorkshire and Harrogate currently offering anti-cancer drug treatments such as chemotherapy will continue to do so – No change from now.
- Some patients with rarer cancers, who currently have to travel to a distant hospital to see the team managing their care will be able to have their chemotherapy at the hospital closest to their home – Proposed change.
- More treatment options will be available outside of hospitals. This could be in your home, in community locations such as GP surgeries or on mobile services – Proposed change.
Outpatient Clinics
- Outpatient clinics for the most common forms of cancer will continue to be provided by each of the six hospital trusts. The most common cancers are lung, breast, colorectal / bowel and prostate cancer – No change from now.
- Clinics for rarer cancers will continue to be provided at the cancer centre in Leeds – No change from now.
- Many outpatient clinics will be provided by doctors. More of the less complex outpatient clinics will be delivered by specialist cancer nurses and cancer pharmacists, these will be supervised by a cancer doctor – Proposed change to ensure all hospitals continue to have enough capacity to deliver clinics.
Acute and inpatient services
- All hospitals with an A&E department will continue to admit cancer patients that are unwell and provide treatment as needed – No change from now.
- A small number of patients with more complex needs will be admitted to a hospital with specialist beds managed by cancer doctors. Leeds St James and Huddersfield Royal Infirmary will continue to provide these specialist beds – No change from now.
- A small number of patients from Bradford who are admitted to hospital with very complex cancer-related needs will be transferred to Leeds Cancer Centre at Leeds St James so that they can be managed by a specialist cancer doctor. Leeds Cancer Centre is increasing the number of specialist beds to help with this. The majority of patients from Bradford will continue to receive care in their local hospital. This change means that the specialist cancer doctors based at Bradford will be able to do more outpatient clinics and support chemotherapy – Proposed change.
- Patients from Wakefield and North Kirklees areas who require a specialist bed will receive care at Huddersfield Royal Infirmary instead of Leeds Cancer Centre. This provides for better continuity of care for patients as doctors from Huddersfield will be working closely with the cancer teams in Wakefield, Dewsbury and Pontefract hospitals – Proposed change.
There will be no change in how radiotherapy is delivered.
