Our network priorities are to improve access to the most advanced and innovative radiotherapy treatments and techniques, so that we can improve our patients' experiences and outcomes after radiotherapy.
"This report highlights the collaborative work over the last two years to achieve our aims and ambitions. Progress has been made on a diverse range of projects, from investment in career promotion activities and innovative virtual reality projects to raise awareness of the radiotherapy workforce, to improving access to patient information, aligning treatment protocols and increasing awareness of research and clinical trials in radiotherapy."
Alison Featherstone, Network Chair
"I am incredibly proud of the clinical leadership and shared commitment that has underpinned our progress so far. While there is still more to do and we have agreed clear priorities for the year ahead, this report reflects just how powerful and necessary this network approach is for delivering safe, innovative and equitable radiotherapy and care for all our patients."
Dr John Frew, Network Clinical Lead
1. Improving access to radiotherapy
Stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SABR)
SABR is a type of external beam radiotherapy that delivers high doses of radiotherapy to a localised area. This can minimise damage to surrounding tissues and reduce side effects from treatment.
SABR has been available at Middlesbrough and Newcastle for sometime, but patients from Cumbria no longer have to travel long distances to access this treatment as it is available at The Northern Centre for Cancer Care in Carlisle.
Surface guided radiotherapy implemented at Newcastle and Carlisle
Surface guided radiotherapy (SGRT) is a technique that involves tracking the patient's surface anatomy in real-time to ensure a faster, more streamlined treatment setup.
This technology is now available in all our radiotherapy centres.
The benefits for patients are:
- Improved accuracy
- More efficient treatment set up times.
- Less patient moving and handling
- Real-time monitoring and automatic corrections
- Minimises need for repeated X-ray imaging
2. reducing variation
AI auto-contouring
MVision’s Contour+ is an AI-powered auto-segmentation software that delivers fast and precise automatic delineation of organs at risk and lymph node areas for radiotherapy treatment planning.
The benefits of AI auto-contouring are:
- Improved consistency in plan quality
- Reduced manual workload for clinical workforce
- Covers all major anatomical sites
- Standardised contouring and clinical protocols align to international contouring recommendations
Analysis using ProKnow
ProKnow allows radiotherapy providers to easily extract radiotherapy data from large datasets and compare them with anonymised plans from other centres treating the same cohort of patients.
National audits have taken place for lung SABR, breast, conventional lung, prostate, lower gastrointestinal, oesophagus, head and neck and gynaecological diseases.
Audit reports will be published soon and will enable clinicians to identify areas of variation against other centres and best practice and ensure patients in our network are receiving the best standard of treatment.
Standardising treatment protocols
Our clinical teams already work together to align practice, but we have also been working towards standardising all our radiotherapy treatment protocols.
There are now network protocols in place for the following tumour sites:
- Breast cancer
- Prostate cancer
- Colorectal cancer
- Gynaecological cancers
This means that patients coming for radiotherapy at The James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough and The Northern Centres for Cancer Care at Newcastle and Carlisle will all receive the same standard of treatment.
3. Improving patients' experiences of care
Improving access to patient information
We have produced information videos about coming for radiotherapy so our patients can be better informed about what to expect. We have a wide range of videos relating to specific tumours, including lung cancer, brain tumours, head and neck cancers, prostate cancer, breast cancer.
Our patient videos are shared widely with tumour teams to ensure patients and are signposted to the videos before they come for treatment.
Patient information surveys
The Network team were heavily involved in the design and implementation of a national radiotherapy patient experience survey in 2023. All our centres participated in the survey with a good response rate from our patients who came for treatment during the survey window.
The initial results from the network were very reassuring with 100% of patients at The James Cook University Hospital and The Northern Centre for Cancer Care rating their care as excellent or good!
We also ran a number of surveys to find out about how patients prefer to receive information and feedback on the new patient information videos.
4. Increasing participation in research and trials
Clinical trials are essential to aid faster development of new, safe, effective treatments and drive the development of clinical services.
Raising awareness of clinical trials and increasing patient recruitment are key priorities for the network. We engaged with patients and clinicians about how best to raise awareness of research and clinical trials, as well as how we could reduce the barriers to participation. We asked people to share their views about what should be included in a video and how to make research as accessible as possible.
In partnership with 3 Point Media, we produced some fantastic video resources for patients, including videos of two patients from our network who share their experiences of being part of a clinical trials.
Thank you so much to Vince and Michelle for working with us to share their experiences of being involved in research. We hope these resources will benefit many patients in future. We’re continuing with our work to improve access to the videos and measure the impact of them.
workforce
Career promotion videos
Ensuring we have a skilled and competent radiotherapy workforce is crucial to ensure we can provide the best treatment for patients, continue to meet the growth in demand for radiotherapy services and ensure our patients don’t have to wait for treatment.
We have been raising awareness of the many different roles involved in prescribing, planning and delivering safe courses of radiotherapy by producing a range of career promotion videos.
Our content is available on our network website and YouTube channel and includes videos and interviews with Therapeutic Radiographers, Clinical Scientists and Clinical Technologists, as well as Radiotherapy Engineers and Healthcare Science Practitioner apprentices.
Get Into Radiotherapy Careers: A virtual reality radiotherapy workplace experience.
We worked with radiotherapy colleagues from networks and centres across the country to develop a virtual reality workplace experience.
The content includes Therapeutic Radiography, Clinical Technology, including treatment planning, dosimetry, and engineering, and Clinical Science. We have 7 available for our network and these have been used successfully at careers events to promote careers in radiotherapy.
conferences
We have held two conferences to bring together network colleagues to showcase the research, innovation and technological advancements happening in our network.
The conferences have provided opportunities for colleagues to share some of their innovative research and service improvements that are taking place in our centres all of the time and to learn from other work.
It was exciting to welcome some fantastic external speakers, including Dr Karen Horridge, a Visiting Professor of Childhood Disability and Health from The University of Sunderland, who presented her working using SNOMED-CT clinical coding to improve outcomes for patients, and Dr Alison Tree, who gave an inspiring and insightful talk on SABR for oligoprogressive disease, sparking lots of discussion with delegates.
Both events were well-attended by radiotherapy colleagues across the network and feedback about the event was excellent.