Start date and duration: 1st August 2019 for 48 months
Funding amount: £790,000
Background
Prompt detection of cancer recurrence through better survivors’ education and convenient symptom monitoring will result in fewer bowel cancer deaths by 2025, as recurrences can be cured. In breast cancer, 3600 will have hormonotherapy, with estimated non-adherence rate of 50%. If better supported self-management of hormonotherapy side-effects increases the adherence to 80%, an estimated 160 lives can be saved in Yorkshire per year.
There is still an unmet need to provide cancer survivors with ongoing self-management guidance with a clear advice when it is appropriate to contact their key worker in secondary care. We believe the right conditions exist to employ and evaluate digital technology to facilitate and improve survivors’ care in Yorkshire specifically addressing the supported self-management and shared care categories of patients.
Project Aim
This project aims to enhance the support for breast and bowel cancer survivors by developing and evaluating a new surveillance approach with online self-reporting of symptoms, provision of tailored advice and integration in risk-stratified care pathways.
We aim to develop an online self-management system which enables the remote reporting of symptoms from home and the provision of self-management advice based upon the responses given.
This study is a 4-year program of action research consisting of 4 phases:
Phase 1 Development: Initially we would like to learn more about the current processes followed by breast and bowel (colorectal) patients moving into follow-up care; the information provided and the support services available to them, in order to inform the content of the self-management system/ toolkit.
Phase 2 Audit: We will be looking at current practice, exploring the follow-up pathway breast and bowel (colorectal) patients experience at the moment.
Phase 3 Intervention: We will be recruiting breast and bowel (colorectal) patients and asking them to test out the newly developed self-management system and give their feedback.
Phase 4 Implementation: Ultimately we plan on rolling out this ‘new’ approach to follow-up incorporating self-management within routine care.
Project team
Prof. Galina Velikova (PI)
Dr Sarah Gelcich
Marie Holmes
Dr Daniel Swinson