The Patient Centred Outcomes Research Group (PCOR) was established in 1999 under Professor Peter Selby.
In 1998 proposals for the group were presented as part of a general scientific review of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund (ICRF) Cancer Medicine Research Unit. Previous work in this area had been carried out using project funding from other funding bodies. Two scientific officer posts and a half-time clerical officer were supported for 3 years by ICRF. The main objectives and strands of research were to introduce automated assessment of quality of life issues in oncology practice and evaluate their impacts on patient care and outcomes and to continue the development of the tools used for this for use in daily practice in clinics.
In 2001, the group was reviewed separately from the ICRF Cancer Medicine Research Unit in what would be its first 5-yearly review. Support was provided for a clinical research fellow, two senior scientific officers, one scientific officer and a half-time clerical support/data collection person.
In 2002, ICRF merged with the Cancer Research Campaign to form Cancer Research UK (CRUK), the world’s largest independent organisation dedicated to cancer research.
In 2003 Professor Galina Velikova, the group leader, got a further grant from Cancer Research UK which funded her time, a full-time research assistant and a part-time administrative support post. The following year, the Yorkshire Cancer Research Network (YCRN) funded another research assistant post to enable studies to be expanded to other locations in Yorkshire. In 2006 the group underwent a successful second five-yearly review and was awarded a five year Programme Grant to continue its work. Additionally, approval was given for Galina Velikova to take over from Professor Selby and lead the programme.
The group continues to work with a number of collaborators, both locally and nationally, in the area of assessment of quality of life issues in cancer, their impact on patient care and outcomes and looking at ways of incorporating this in every day clinical practice.
In addition to the continuation of existing studies, the group has started a programme of work that develops this further. This falls into two main areas: adaptation of quality of life questionnaires to improve their ability to identify issues and training doctors how to interpret the results from the questionnaires and respond to them. Further details of the group’s research can be found in other sections of this webpage
In 2008 we moved to the St James’s Hospital site closer to the clinics where our work is done and to many of the people with whom we work.
Today, our team focuses its research in several areas, with a common theme of using Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) to improve quality of life and patient-centred care. We currently bring together investigators with interests across:
- Applied research aimed at improving cancer patients’ quality of life. With a focus on the development, implementation and evaluation of online ePROMS systems to support patient care and clinical pathways.
- Family caregiving, quality of life and symptom management in neuro-oncology. Including investigating understudied groups, using patient-reported outcome measures to help assess the effects of supportive interventions and improving quality of life and access to support.
- Use and linkage of patient reported outcome data with routinely collected clinical data from cancer registries and electronic patient records.
- Developing standards and practices for the use of PROMs item libraries.
- Teenage and Young Adult (TYA) cancer focussed health services research including the collection of ePROMS and use of health informatics to understand and address the challenges of living with and beyond cancer.