A nurse-led multidisciplinary team approach in urology-oncology: Addressing the new cancer strategy. (September 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: McGlynn, Brian; Johnston, Maximilian; Green, James
• Is Part Of: Journal of clinical urology. Volume 10:Number 5(2017)
• Page Start: 449
• Page End: 456
• Publication Date: 2017-09
• Subjects: Care pathway -- multidisciplinary team -- nurse-led -- quality performance indicators -- Scotland -- urology-oncology; Genitourinary organs -- Surgery -- Periodicals; Genitourinary organs -- Diseases -- Periodicals; Urology -- Periodicals; 616.6005
• DOI: 10.1177/2051415817700034
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2051-4158

Abstract

Objectives: The urology-oncology service in NHS Ayrshire and Arran (AA) is nurse-led, with a multidisciplinary team (MDT) process at its core. Here, we assess the efficacy of this nurse-led service against similar services and consider it in the context of the new NHS cancer strategy. Materials and methods: Audit data regarding the management of patients with urological malignancies published by the West of Scotland Cancer Network (WoSCAN) were compared against pre-determined quality performance indicators. These data were used to assess the efficacy of the NHS AA service against the other WoSCAN centres. Results: All parameters analysed were comparable, except for the following performance indicators for which the NHS AA data appeared to show significant improvement compared with the other WoSCAN centres: the number of patients with bladder cancer with recorded TNM clinical staging ( p = 0.012); the proportion of patients with prostate cancer who underwent transrectal ultrasound-guided prostate biopsy for histological diagnosis where a minimum of 10 cores are received by pathology ( p = 0.043); and the number of patients with metastatic prostate cancer who underwent immediate hormone therapy ( p = 0.031). Conclusion: Our analysis demonstrates that the NHS AA urology-oncology nurse-led MDT-based service is a highly efficient and well-functioning structure.