Background

For Multi-Disciplinary Team (MDT) meetings to derive their full benefit, they need to be able to operate effectively and provide multi-disciplinary input where it is needed - yet a study by Cancer Research UK in 2017 found there was not enough time in the MDT meeting to discuss more complex patients, with around half of patients discussed for two minutes or less. For these reasons the Independent Cancer Taskforce Report recommended that NHS England should encourage providers to focus specialist time in the MDT meeting on those cases which do not follow well-established clinical pathways. This work remains central to ambitions of the NHS Long Term Plan to improve access to specialist expertise in cancer care. In March 2022 RM Partners begun introducing improvements to MDT meetings to align with the Independent Cancer Taskforce Report recommendations at some of their hospitals.

 

Project

To build on the MDT workstream led by RM Partners, Pfizer has been asked to work in collaboration to map current MDT practices and the patient flows to and from all solid tumour MDTs across West London.

The project will also include a deep dive into prostate and head & neck cancer to include an understanding of the infrastructure. The main aim of this is to assess the productivity and standards to identify the gaps between the current MDT meeting processes and the Independent Cancer Taskforce Report recommendations.

 

Benefits

Benefits to Patients

• Supporting better outcomes for cancer patients (e.g. improve decision making at MDT)

• More appropriate cases discussed, thus timely case review leading to patient being discussed at MDT quicker

• Reduced variation between trusts on MDT quality thus improving equity for patients

Benefits to NHS

• Efficiency in MDT working practice

• Healthcare Professionals supported via standards of care produced by the Cancer Alliance

• Areas identified for improvement to enhance best practice

Benefits to Pfizer

• Knowledge and understanding of the MDT Practice

• Knowledge and understanding of Integrated Care Systems

Proposed term of collaborative working project

Start Date: 01/09/2022
End Date: 31/12/2022

 

Outcomes

By the end of December 2022 produce:

1. One page infographic summary for each Trust and tumour type multi-disciplinary team (MDT) meeting within RM Alliance.

2. Anonymised summary of MDT meeting’s common pinch points/themes for onward sharing by RM Partners.

3. One page infographic illustrating this collaborative working project to share with other NHS organisations as part of best practice sharing.
   
    

Resource allocation

Pfizer - 240 hours of Project Management resource (2 days a week for 16 weeks)

RM Partners Cancer Alliance - 240 hours of Subject Matter Expertise resource (2 days a week for 16 weeks)