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<p>The Government’s Mandate to NHS England sets out an ambition to make England one
of the most successful countries in Europe at preventing premature deaths from all
cancers, including prostate cancer. Cancer indicators in the NHS Outcomes Framework
and the Public Health Outcomes Framework will help NHS England to assess progress
in improving cancer survival and mortality for men with prostate cancer.</p><p> </p><p>
</p><p> </p><p>The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) Referral
Guidelines for Suspected Cancer (2005) are available to help general practitioners
(GPs) assess when it is appropriate to refer patients for suspected cancer, including
prostate cancer. NICE is in the process of updating the guidelines to ensure that
these reflect latest evidence and can continue to support GPs to identify patients
with suspected cancer symptoms and urgently refer them as appropriate. NICE’s anticipated
publication date for the revised guidelines is May 2015.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>At
a local level, it is for individual clinical commissioning groups to promote and enhance
the diagnostic capability to deliver better outcomes. Surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy
treatments that may be used for prostate cancer are commissioned at the moment by
NHS England. NHS England’s prostate cancer service specification clearly defines what
it expects to be in place for providers to offer evidence-based, safe and effective
prostate cancer services. This service specification has been developed by specialised
clinicians, commissioners, expert patients and public health representatives to describe
core and developmental service standards.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The NICE published
an updated clinical guideline on the diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer in
January 2014. NICE has recommended docetaxel, abiraterone and enzalutamide as treatment
options for some types of prostate cancer, subject to certain clinical criteria and
is currently appraising a number of other prostate cancer drugs. Patients have the
right to drugs and treatments that have been recommended by NICE technology appraisal
guidance for use in the National Health Service, where their doctor believes they
are clinically appropriate. A number of drugs to treat prostate cancer are available
through the Cancer Drugs Fund.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>To help reduce regional
variations, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) is increasingly incorporating information
from accreditation and peer review programmes into its assessments of NHS trusts'
services for the treatment of prostate cancer. This includes the national cancer peer
review programme, which encompasses prostate cancer. The cancer patient survey also
asks specific questions on having a specialist nurse. The CQC intends to use data
from the national clinical audit which is being developed for prostate cancer. In
addition, national statistics on waiting times experienced by patients with suspected
and diagnosed cancers continue to be collected, monitored and published in order to
improve equity of access to cancer services and to contribute to an improvement in
survival rates.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>This Government is also investing in
innovative radiotherapy treatments to improve outcomes for those with cancer. NHS
England has also committed to make up to £6 million available over the next three
years to support six trials by Cancer Research UK into the use of Stereotactic Ablative
Body Radiotherapy (SABR). This will allow patients to receive SABR treatment now,
where clinicians think they could benefit. At the same time doctors can fully assess
the effectiveness of these treatments so that in future, if it proves to be effective,
they will be available for all relevant patients on the NHS. Two of these six trials
will be on prostate cancer.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>We have also invested £23
million across 50 United Kingdom centres aimed at increasing the capacity of radiotherapy
centres in England to deliver Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy (IMRT). We committed
to achieving the ambition of 24% of all radiotherapy to be delivered through more
accurate IMRT, and we are now seeing 35% of all radical radiotherapy treatments delivered
using this method compared to 5% in 2010.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The National
Prostate Cancer Audit (NCPA) First Year Annual Report was published on the 10 November.
The report covers the work undertaken since April 2013. It includes a preliminary
analysis of the NPCA’s organisational audit, an analysis of existing data sets including
patients with prostate cancer in England, and the design of the NPCA’s prospective
audit dataset. The findings from the audit will contribute to changes in clinical
practice ensuring that patients receive the best care possible and experience an improved
quality of life. The audit is funded by the Department and has been commissioned by
the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership.</p><p> </p>
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