The SPCR is ideally placed to help with these recommendations ... and I would welcome any interest from members of the SPCR in taking this forward. "
- Professor Julia Hippisley-Cox
"Over the last couple of years, I have been an expert witness to the Parliamentary Enquiry because of my role in the research, development and implementation of the QCancer tool (www.qcancer.org ) into clinical practice.
This has been of particular interest in relation to pancreatic cancer because of how difficult it is to diagnose in primary care, especially at a stage when any treatment can help.
With the support of Macmillan and CRUK, QCancer was piloted in 500 practices nationally. It was then fully integrated into EMIS Web and is available to over 4,500 GP practices nationally (though currently awareness of the tools among GPs is very low).
We are now at a point, for the first time ever, that the majority of GPs have access to cancer decision support tools to help assess a patients risk of different types of cancer with the aim of making earlier diagnoses.
The next stages are for the QCancer tools to be used in clinical practice and hence the APPGPC report which has just been published is calling for increased Support for GPs through Cancer Decision Aid Tools
The report made four specific recommendations in relation to General Practice
- all GPs must have access to Cancer Decision Aid Tools
- all GPs must be educated about their use,
- professional bodies and the NICE guidelines must support their integration, and
- researchers must analyse the tools’ benefits, uptake, and impact.
The SPCR is ideally placed to help with these recommendations, especially the second and last recommendation on research and I would welcome any interest from members of the SPCR in taking this forward. "