Welcome to the NHS Cancer Commissioning Toolkit

This site is aimed at supporting World-class Commissioning of cancer services across the NHS by making information on cancer care in England freely available. It includes a range of high-level indicators, as well as a number of links to more detailed information, right across the patient’s journey: from prevention and screening through referral and treatment to living with and beyond cancer, as well as end of life care.

Guidance on NHS patients who wish to pay for additional private care

Following a 12 week consultation, from 4 November 2008 to 27 January 2009, the Department of Health has now published final guidance on NHS patients wishing to pay for additional private care, alongside a Government response to the consultation. This follows the publication on 4 November 2008 of Professor Mike Richards’s report Improving access to medicines for NHS patients, and the Secretary of State’s announcement of a package of measures in response, designed to make more drugs available to NHS patients free of charge on the NHS. These measures, such as the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence’s introduction of greater flexibility into its appraisal of more expensive drugs for end of life conditions, should minimise the number of patients who will ever want to pay for additional private care.

Published March 2009, 15 pages

Cancer commissioning guidance

The cancer commissioning guidance announced as part of the Cancer Reform Strategy has been developed to support world-class commissioning of cancer services across the NHS. The guidance sets out, in an easy-to-use format, key issues and questions that commissioners and cancer network teams will want to take into consideration when assessing health needs, reviewing services, developing their contract service specifications and monitoring performance. The cancer commissioning guidance sits alongside the linked web-based cancer commissioning toolkit which supports commissioners of cancer services by providing a range of benchmarked information and data.

Published January 2009, 152 pages

Improving outcomes in children and young people with cancer

Letter containing the document Key messages for commissioners of cancer services for teenagers and young adults, developed by the National Cancer Action Team (with advice and support from an expert working group) at the request of the Children and Young People Improving Outcomes Guidance (CYPIOG) Advisory Group to support the implementation of National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidance, Improving outcomes for children and young people with cancer.

Published September 2008, 13 pages

Other documents and conferences

Innovation workshops available to support world class commissioning

To register your interest in attending a workshop, please contact: gina.shakespeare@dh.gsi.gov.uk.

Development of new NHS contracts.

National Cancer Intelligence Network: Cancer e-Atlas

Will practice-based commissioning in the English NHS resolve the problems experienced by GP fundholding? Public Money and Management 2008; 28 (4): 231-238.

The role of specialist physicians in the commissioning of clinical services Clinical Medicine 2008; 8 (3): 248-249.

Ask your local health librarian to locate journal articles, don't know who they are in the UK pop your postcode into HLISD.

National Cancer Intelligence Network

In line with the commitments in the Cancer Reform Strategy, the National Cancer Intelligence Network (NCIN) will be launched in June 2008.

The NCIN will coordinate the collection, analysis and publication of comparative national information on diagnosis, treatment and outcomes for types of cancers and types of patient, in a way which is useful to patients, commissioners and service providers and other interested parties. As part of the NCRI, partners will help fund research on the data collated by the NCIN, facilitating a more informed analysis of cancer services than has ever been possible before.