NHS England announce audit of pancreatic cancer treatment and care
Pancreatic Cancer UK's Head of Policy, Intelligence and Campaigns, Danni Manzi, responds to NHS England's announcement.
On 20th May, we learned that NHS England will be undertaking an audit of pancreatic cancer treatment and care. This is absolutely fantastic news and a much-needed development in transforming care and treatment – and it’s down to you, our supporters and campaigners that this has happened.
For many years, we’ve been calling for an audit for pancreatic cancer. Indeed, our Demand Survival Now campaign laid out three ambitions that needed to happen to improve survival for those diagnosed and living with pancreatic cancer and one of these was a national pancreatic cancer audit.
An audit will provide us with the insight, intelligence and information we need to understand more about the experiences of people with pancreatic cancer, the outcomes of care and treatment, and the differences across the country.
Data, collected via an audit, can play a huge role in transforming care, everywhere for those with pancreatic cancer. An audit will provide us with the insight, intelligence and information we need to understand more about the experiences of people with pancreatic cancer, the outcomes of care and treatment, and the differences across the country. From this data we can identify where and, crucially, how we can do better- ensuring more, better and consistent support for those diagnosed and living with the disease wherever they are in England. In short, an audit is a powerful tool – one which will really help us to leverage change across the NHS.
There will be five cancer audits taking place in total:
- Ovarian
- Pancreatic
- Non-Hodgkin lymphoma
- Kidney
- Metastic breast cancer
They have been chosen because analysis suggests they are the five cancers for which audits would have most potential to reduce unwarranted variation in treatment and outcomes. Over the next few months, we will be working with NHS England to plan, design and support the delivery of this audit, and we will keep you updated on how this is going.
The efforts of our supporters and campaigners are the reason this audit has been made possible, so thank you for your unwavering support and commitment. Together, we can, and will, make a difference to the lives of those living with, and affected by, this awful disease.
Reducing variation in cancer care is at the heart of the NHS Long Term Plan, and while much has already been achieved, including improvements to earlier diagnosis, this significant investment in the new audits will help the NHS to go even further in improving survival and quality of life for our patients. When complete, these audits will help the NHS to take targeted action in any areas that need improvements.”