Nid yw’r dudalen ar gael yn y Gymraeg
National Assembly for Wales
Health and social Services Committee
Review of Cancer Services for the People of Wales
| Name of respondent:South Wales - Gynaecological Oncology Service |
| Are you responding on behalf of an organisation?No |
| If so please give the name |
| Address:Gynaecological Oncology Service Llandough Hospital CF64 2XX |
| Telephone number:029 2071 6045/6096 |
| Would you be willing to give oral evidence to the Committee? Yes |
| If the evidence you give below is your personal view, rather then that of an organisation, please state whether or not you are willing for your evidence to be published by putting a X in the appropriate box below: Yes |
| I am content for my evidence to be published X |
| I am not content for my evidence to be published |
| 1 | How can information technology be used more effectively to track and facilitate the patient’s journey? |
| Response | Please see the CSCG review of information technology published recently. Referral into the gynaecological oncology service via the intranet would ensure efficient referral into the service. Users need to be made aware that this is a secure facility. |
| 2 | How effectively is research and good practice being integrated with service delivery? What can be done and by whom to improve this? |
| Response | Our own experience to date of trying to develop clinical/surgical/national studies is the very limited support. We require clinical trials unit support to get through the paperwork required by the Trust R&D, MREC, MHRA etc. Support is required to empower and facilitate clinical staff to partake in clinical trials. We need to improve access NCRN nurses to support Gynaecological studies. |
| 3 | What are your views on the complexity of commissioning services? Is the process hampered by the involvement of the local health boards, cancer networks and Health Commission Wales? How could it simplified? |
| Response | In England there is a clear line for commissioning cancer services. In Wales there is no organisation responsible for Cancer Services answerable to the public for the poor quality of cancer care throughout Wales. Women in Wales with gynaecological cancer are subject to the vagaries of referral, indifferent expertise in diagnosis and care and there is no-one auditing or accepting responsibility for poor outcome, (please see our own report: Audit of Ovarian Cancer 1999). The funding should be top sliced, management should be by sub-specialty groups and there should be responsibility and audit of outcomes. |
| 4 | What evidence is there of the value of screening and immunisation? |
| Response | Cervical Screening of Wales - please refer to annual reports. There are ongoing studies of ovarian cancer screening (UKCTOCS UKCFOCS). Prophylactic HPV vaccination will be an issue from 2007 when the vaccines are expected to receive a European licence. |
| 5 | What are the barriers to the NHS in Wales keeping abreast of, and responding to, developing technologies and therapies? How might these barriers be overcome? |
| Response | We accept that there is a limited budget for health, but we do not accept the tensions brought about by having large bureaucracies starving other areas of funding, e.g. in our area we have no funding for basic nutritional support despite recently appointing two Business Managers within the Directorate of Obstetrics and Gynaecology with their associate support staff. |
| 6 | How can the NHS and the voluntary sector work together more effectively to deliver services? |
| Response | We are unable to provide basic facilities to allow the voluntary sector to function and support patients, e.g. the inability of the Trust to provide furniture for quiet room for a charity based counsellor. As a service we lack the expertise and do not have the training to tap into this resource although we are aware of the potential of such charities. We consider there is a huge potential role for WAG to utilise voluntary, sector input, e.g. could there be an equivalent organisation to the Prince’s Trust. |
| 7 | How can the collection and use of data on where the terminally ill spend their last weeks or months be improved better to inform service provision for those people? |
| Response | "You do not get a pig fatter by weighing it". We do not feel we should be spending limited resource on collecting data about the terminally ill, but rather using to provide clinical services for the terminally ill, e.g. beds have been closed in Home Towers in recent times. |
| 8 | There are a number of issues around prescribing and the cost of drugs: |
| 8(i) | What should be done and by whom to reduce continued prescribing of inappropriate drugs? |
| Response | Ensure that the patient is managed by the correct pathway by the correct professionals! |
| 8(ii) | Should people who are prepared to pay privately for drugs not available to them on the NHS, be able to do so without having to become private patients and having to pay for all their treatment? |
| Response | This is patient choice and they should not have to pay for all their treatment. Useful drugs should be available to them. |
| 8(iii) | Do doctors, pharmacists and other health professionals have adequate access to independent advice and guidance on the prescribing of drugs? |
| Response | Yes |
| 9 | Are services centred on the patient, with service users consulted? If not what are the reasons for this and how patient involvement be improved? |
| Response | Services throughout Wales are skewed to political and medical interests with the patient coming low down on the list of priorities. |
