Living with and beyond cancer: The improvement story so far - NHS ...

42 | Living with and beyond cancer: The improvement story so far
In addition to this, a training
programme on SPARC HNA was
provided for relevant staff. This
included a two hour session for all staff
undertaking the assessments for the
project work, delivered by clinicians
from North Trent Cancer network as
part of local roll out of HNA across the
network. Sessions also included project
staff and user representatives.
What difference has the testing
work made or identified
• Increased numbers of users engaged
and involved in clinical pathway
development
• Provided SPARC HNA training for
relevant staff as part of local roll out
of HNA across the network
• Patient information and support
needs in survivorship have been
identified and prioritised and a future
plan for testing developed e.g. breast
cancer open day
• Identified some common differences
in individual patient need between
different tumour sites e.g. type of
issues highlighted by prostate
patients tend to be more physical,
however, breast and haematology are
more related to emotional health
• Identified logistical issues of
undertaking HNA e.g. length of time
to undertake varied from five to
30 minutes in prostate to 30 to 105
minutes in breast.
Learning so far
• SPARC HNA training well received by
staff trained on the whole. Users
attending training were impressed by
the thoroughness of the assessment.
Feedback will inform future sessions
• Results from SPARC HNAs completed
showed that the assessments were
very well received by patients and
also very useful to guide
development of models to test
• Patient information and support
needs scoping and prioritisation
exercise valued by all group members
especially user representatives
• Logistical issues of undertaking HNA
assessments needs to be borne in
mind e.g. variation in time taken
(ranged from five to 105 minutes)
and availability of appropriate venue
in which to undertake e.g. patient
taken to cancer information and
support centre to find a confidential
space
• Availability of staff from busy rotas to
undertake training and complete
assessments extended the
implementation time, despite
offering several different
opportunities for training
• SPARC training for the project has
helped to further the HNA
implementation throughout the
cancer network.
Next steps
• Patients who have been through the
SPARC HNAs will be invited to
participate in phase 2 of the Picker
Experience Survey
• To test an open day for breast cancer
patients in partnership with Breast
Cancer Care and evaluate the
content, location etc (patients and
carers invited)
• HNA training for healthcare
professionals identified as one of our
testing models in order to ascertain if
it is feasible to implement in the
pathway, the barriers to
implementation, what supports
implementation and when to do a
SPARC assessment
• To test a haematology post transplant
rehabilitation programme to ascertain
whether quality of life, fatigue and
exercise tolerance can be improved
with a weekly exercise group for
myeloma patients post autologous
stem cell transplant.
Contacts
Denise Friend
Project Manager and Service
Improvement Facilitator, North Trent
Cancer Network .
denise.friend@ntcn.nhs.uk
Professor Sam Ahmedzai
Test Site Lead and Professor of
Palliative Medicine, Academic Unit
of Supportive Care, School of
Medicine and Biomedical Sciences,
University of Sheffield
pallmed@sheffield.ac.uk