Improving outcomes for people with skin tumours including melanoma

• Improving the experience of care. Access to specialist palliative
care and place of death should be monitored to ensure optimal
access and choice of place of death for patients.
Implementation of the advice set out in the Health Development
Agency document titled Cancer prevention: A resource to support
local action in delivering The NHS Cancer Plan [14] should start to
change attitudes and behaviour towards UV exposure and enhance
earlier detection of skin cancers.
C. Resource implications
There will be resource implications for the networks from the
recommendations concerning the implementation of the Royal
College of Pathologists minimum data requirements. This will be
considered in the ‘Initial investigation, diagnosis, staging and
management’ chapter of the guidance.
Cancer registries do not currently have the resources to collect data
on all skin cancers. Much of the data collection will be facilitated in
the future by developments in electronic data transfer as a result of
the National Programme for Information Technology in England [31]
and Informing Healthcare in Wales [32]. This will take some time to
be fully implemented. In order that two cancer registries may
undertake full registration of all skin cancers, the costs are estimated
to be between £35,638 and £54,842 for the first year, while staff are
trained. The annual recurring costs would be the same; the variation
is dependent upon exactly how many additional staff are required.
This cost is likely to decrease as registries that are not currently fully
automated become so.
Improving Outcomes for
People with Skin Tumours
including Melanoma
Background
1
D. Audit and research priorities
Commissioners should ask their local cancer registries to undertake a
joint audit with local clinicians of the current extent and quality of
skin cancer registration in order to gain a better understanding of the
relevance of local statistics for service planning.
The impact on mortality and survival from skin cancer of
implementing this guidance should be evaluated.
Further research on the epidemiology of skin cancer is urgently
required to improve the targeting of preventive interventions.
Guidance on cancer services: skin tumours including melanoma
27