Exclusive GP practices in Manchester are each being offered up to £6,700 as part of a joint initiative from Macmillan Cancer Support and local CCGs to provide better care and support of cancer patients.
The initiative – the Macmillan Cancer Improvement Partnership (MCIP) – is being trialled in Manchester, after the city came bottom out of 150 areas in England for premature cancer mortality rates in 2013, the charity said.
The city’s 96 practices are being urged to sign up for the scheme, which will see both clinical and non-clinical practice staff trained up as ‘cancer champions’ to advise and signpost patients.
Practices that take part will receive a £2,000 baseline sum and then 26p per patient according to their list size up to £6,700.
The scheme will introduce a new universal cancer coding template on GP computer systems, to improve updating of cancer registers, and implement a more comprehensive cancer care review than the current QOF review.
In addition, it aims to help practices to improve advance care planning for patients reaching the end of life.
Dr Amanda Myerscough, Macmillan GP for NHS Central Manchester CCG, said: ‘Manchester’s cancer survival rates are just not good enough and we need to act now to increase survival rates and create a system where diagnosis can be made earlier.’
She added: ‘The MCIP locally commissioned service will have the impact on awareness, diagnosis and care that our patients rightly deserve. The response so far has been extremely positive.’
Dr Dennis Colligan, Macmillan GP for NHS North Manchester CCG, told Pulse the project was aimed at supporting practices and not introducing more work for them.
Dr Colligan said: ‘We don’t want to overburden GPs – they’ve got enough to be doing already. We are trying to make some sensible, clinically sound suggestions which hopefully will become mainstream when the locally commissioned service is been and gone.
‘I think of it as being like what we did with diabetes 15 years ago, because now if you go round most practices they’ll have a diabetes clinic – that wasn’t the case when I started out.’
Macmillan Cancer Support hopes the scheme can be rolled out in other areas of England if it proves successful.
