The last few months has seen some significant steps forward in primary care, with the aim to better support all healthcare professionals provide the best care for those people living with cancer. This article highlights some of our key updates, with links to additional resources and information:

Macmillan Support Line

A cancer diagnosis not only brings challenges around the condition itself, but affects people’s work, finances, and emotional needs. Macmillan’s Support Line has been developed to complement patient care pathways, acting as a hub to answer questions or listen to concerns. Macmillan’s specialist staff are available to help patients and their loved ones with the holistic needs that come with the condition.

But what does this mean for GPs? It is now easy for GPs to refer their patients with cancer to the Macmillan support line with forms already embedded into EMIS and SystmOne, simply complete the form, save it and email it to Macmillan at supportlinereferrals@macmillan.org.uk. Once received the patient will receive a call back from on of our advisers to assess their needs, offer guidance and provide specialist information. 

For more information you can hear from Anthony Cunliffe our National Clinical Advisor talk more about the referral process and our specialist support services.  

Social Prescribing Education

We are continuing to expand and diversify the professional development offerings we provide to healthcare professionals. We know the important role social prescribers play in the primary care network, so we have developed a two module e-learning course to improve professionals understanding of the needs of people living with cancer and practical steps that can be offered as part of the care pathway. To learn more about this and other learning and development opportunities sign up to our Learning and Communications Hub. 

Cancer Care Review 

Cancer Care Reviews (CCR) are becoming more common place in primary care, however they have not always been integrated as part of a perosnalised approach for patients after they have left secondary care. Therefore, Macmillan worked collaboratively with a group of frontline GPs to develop a comprehensive electronic Cancer Care Review template, which is now integrated into the EMIS Web, TPP SystmOne and INPS Vision clinical systems. The template has been designed to be practical and intuitive to meet the requirements for Quality and Outcomes Framework. The QOF also specifies that practices should use Macmillan’s national, integrated electronic CCR template to support a well-structured review, with prompts to facilitate a holistic and person-centred conversation.

We evaluated the impact of using the Macmillan CCR template and found that after using our ‘Cancer Care in Primary Care: A Quality Toolkit for General Practice’ increased the number of practice nurses conducting CCR’s and improved the quality of conversations with patients. You can find more information on the CCR and multiple tools we have helped develop to support this here.