The Cancer Vanguard: Driving innovation in cancer care
The National Cancer Strategy
The National Cancer Strategy, Achieving World-Class Cancer Outcomes, was published in 2015 and included 96 recommendations to help transform the care that the NHS delivers for all those affected by cancer. The Cancer Vanguard has been tasked with contributing to the delivery of some of the key outcomes of the National Cancer Strategy.
The NHS England National Cancer Strategy, Achieving World-Class Cancer Outcomes, was published in 2015 by the Independent Cancer Taskforce. The taskforce looked at how cancer services are currently provided and set out a vision for what cancer patients should expect from the health service. The report included 96 recommendations to help transform the care that the NHS delivers for all those affected by cancer.
A plan was launched by Cally Palmer, National Cancer Director for England, to make these changes a reality by 2020. Its key strategic priorities are to:
- Radically upgrade prevention and public health
- Lead a national drive for earlier and faster diagnosis
- Put patient experience on a par with clinical effectiveness and safety
- Transform our approach to living with and beyond cancer
- Invest in high quality modern services
- Transform commissioning, provision and accountability
This includes the establishment of 16 Cancer Alliances across the country to lead implementation of the strategy locally. With the three Alliances that form the Cancer Vanguard leading, they will rigorously pilot and roll out effective and efficient ways to plan, pay and direct the delivery of cancer services.
About the Cancer Vanguard
The Cancer Vanguard is a partnership led by: The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, and University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. It works across a population of 10.7 million people, which provides an unprecedented opportunity to transform and create new models of cancer care that can be reproduced nationally.
In January 2015, the NHS invited individual organisations and partnerships to apply to become ‘vanguard’ sites for the NHS England New Care Models programme. This would be one of the first steps towards delivering the Five Year Forward View and support improvement and integration of services.
Each vanguard site would take a lead on the development of new care models that will act as blueprints for the NHS moving forward and an inspiration to the rest of the health and care system. In October 2015 one national Cancer Vanguard was established which is contributing to the delivery of the key outcomes from the National Cancer Strategy.
The Cancer Vanguard is jointly led by three provider organisations: The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, and University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, working across a total population of 10.7 million – 18% of England’s population. As such it provides an unprecedented opportunity to transform care and create scalable and replicable options for the whole country.
Each of the three cancer vanguard organisations leads a local delivery system – Greater Manchester Cancer Vanguard Innovation, RM Partners in north west and south west London, and UCLH Cancer Collaborative covering north east and central London and west Essex.
The guiding principles across the Cancer Vanguard include:
- Ensuring that outcomes that matter to patients and families are authentically at its centre
- That the work programme will be in the best interests of the cancer population of London and Manchester, not that of individual organisations
- Using clinically led measurement and evidence to set the level of ambition and inform learning and improvement
- Encompassing the whole cancer pathway with an emphasis on early diagnosis and detection, as this has the most potential to improve survival outcomes and patient experience
- Developing robust governance and streamlined commissioning and delivery processes focused on transformational change that delivers good stewardship of sector resources.
Collaboration is key to the success of the Cancer Vanguard. By working radically yet inclusively across the defined population, incorporating all partners from public health and screening, primary and community care, secondary and tertiary care and hospice care, the Cancer Vanguard will provide innovative, high quality, evidence based care across the whole patient pathway.