August 2011

Welcome to the August edition of our newsletter for GPs, updating you on activities in primary care.

Macmillan produces this newsletter for the benefit of Macmillan GPs, Primary Care Cancer Leads, and our wider GP and primary care colleagues to keep you informed of developments within Macmillan Cancer Support.

Further information can be obtained from your local Macmillan GP Adviser (details at the end of the newsletter) or by responding to this email address: macmillan_primary_care@macmillan.org.uk.

Cancer is changing; in a practice of 6000 there will be 200 people who have had cancer treatment and most of these will have lived at least five years after the diagnosis. Established models of care and particularly hospital-based follow up are under review, as there is little evidence that they are effective in detecting recurrence and patients tell us that many of their needs are not recognised or met.

Macmillan is exploring the potential role of practice nurses in supporting cancer care in primary care; particularly cancer care reviews and the longer term support of people after primary cancer treatment.

Primary care and in particular practice nurses have demonstrated that with appropriate training and support (often from hospital based nurse specialist colleagues) they are very effective in supporting patients with long term conditions such as diabetes, asthma and COPD. They encourage self management and positive lifestyle changes and patients appreciate the long term relationships.

We therefore want to explore with a group of experienced practice nurses, working over six months as an action learning set, how their existing skills can be reframed to meet the needs of those living with and beyond cancer. Together we will also try to identify additional training that may be needed to provide new knowledge and skills to enable practice nurses to develop the confidence to take a greater role with this group of patients. Interestingly, the nurses will probably already be familiar with around half these patients as almost 50% have a co-existing long term condition. The workshops will be in the Taunton area and will run monthly between September and May.

As part of the ongoing review and development of Macmillan's Out of Hours(OOH) Toolkit, we have teamed up with BMJ Learning to develop a free of charge OOH and palliative care e-learning course for all professionals involved in the delivery and coordination of out-of-hours care.

The modules are based on the education chapter within the OOH toolkit and cover practical guidance and information on a number of key areas of out-of-hours and palliative care. There are 20 modules in total which will be available on Learn Zone with an overview summary module available on the BMJ Learning website . You will need to be logged into Learn Zone in order to view it. Once logged in, please go to Health & Social Care Professionals > Toolkits and Packs > Out of Hours toolkit.

The course has been designed so that users can "dip in and out" of the content with each module taking between 30 and 60 minutes to complete.

If you have any questions about the course or any of the content within Macmillan's OOH toolkit, please contact Stephanie Peart, Healthcare Project Officer: speart@macmillan.org.uk

Macmillan Cancer Support and Informatica (part of BMJ Group), who produce practice software, are working together to develop an electronic version of the Risk Assessment Tool (RAT) developed by Professor Willie Hamilton. The tool is currently being tested in England in paper-formats as part of the National Awareness and Early Detection Initiative (NAEDI).

Macmillan is supporting the NAEDI initiative by translating the tool into an IT format within the Informatica systems, and testing this widely across the UK. The pilot aims to test the feasibility and usefulness of an IT version of the tool, as well as providing an insight into how the tool might influence GP referral behaviour.

Download the expression of interest form [PDF, 54kb]

For more information on the project, please contact Stephanie Peart, Healthcare Project Officer: speart@macmillan.org.uk

The Cancer in Primary Care project is a collaborative venture between the North West London Cancer Network User Group, The London Deanery and Macmillan Cancer Support.

The toolkit is an education resource aimed at supporting GPs with appropriate referral of patients with suspicious symptoms of cancer. The toolkit offers a range of scenarios illustrating good and bad experiences of patients when they present to their GP and how, on reflection, their experience could have been improved.

You can access the new toolkit free of charge via Macmillan's Learn Zone (you will need to be logged into The Learn Zone in order to view it. Once logged in, please go to Health & Social Care Professionals > Toolkits and Packs > Cancer in Primary Care - a toolkit).

The date and venue for this year's Macmillan Primary Care Conference have been confirmed!

This year's conference will be held on 19 and 20 October at Lords Cricket Ground. Please make a note of the date in your diaries. For those of you holding 29 and 30 September in your diaries, these dates can now be released. Online registration for the event will open in August.

For further information, please visit the website.

Macmillan's newly re-designed 'Are you worried about...' leaflets address cancer generally, as well as several specific cancer types: bowel, breast, ovarian and prostate

• MAC12150 Are you worried about cancer? Edition 4
• MAC12151 Are you worried about bowel cancer? Edition 4
• MAC12152 Are you worried about ovarian cancer? Edition 4
• MAC 12153 Are you worried about breast cancer? Edition 4
• MAC12154 Are you worried about prostate cancer? Edition 3

In addition, our booklet Cancer genetics, How cancer sometimes runs in families (MAC11673, Edition 3),provides information for anyone who is worried that cancer may run in their family.

Our online tool, OPERA, allows people to input personal details to check their risk of inheriting breast or ovarian cancer.

You can read the information featured in these resources online under Cancer Information.

If you speak to anyone who is concerned about their risk of inherited cancer, please do direct them to this helpful information. You can order all the leaflets free of charge from be.Macmillan

Learn Zone
Learn Zone gives you free and easy access to a wide variety of online resources, e-learning programmes, professional development tools and information about Macmillan's latest learning and development opportunities. Learn Zone is open to Macmillan professionals, other healthcare professionals and members of the public.

Visit us at doctors.net.uk
Macmillan is pleased to announce that we have teamed up with Doctors.net.uk to develop a Macmillan microsite that will sit on their website over a 3 month pilot period. The site will have regular updates about projects and activities in primary care.
For information on the project, please contact Stephanie Peart, Healthcare Project Officer: speart@macmillan.org.uk

www.nhs.uk/youngcancercare
If you're aged between 19 and 24 and have been diagnosed with cancer, you may have a choice about where to you receive care. This website aims to guide people through some of the decisions they're able to make.

We hope you've enjoyed reading this update from Macmillan GP Advisors. Please feel free to send us your comments by responding to macmillan_primary_care@macmillan.org.uk

Best wishes,
Macmillan GP Advisers

Dr Terry Bowley, Dr Cathy Burton, Dr Charles Campion-Smith, Dr Duncan Leith, Dr David Linden, Dr Rosie Loftus (lead GP Adviser), Dr David Plume, Dr Rhys Davies, Dr Kavi Sharma, Dr Lucy Thompson, Dr Hong Tseung, Dr Steven Beaven, Dr Matthias Hohmann, Dr Bridget Gwynne, Dr Judy Parsons

Primary Care Central Macmillan Team:
Lorraine Sloan, Primary and Community Care Programme Manager
Stephanie Peart, Healthcare Project Officer

Want to know more about who we are and what we do? Visit www.macmillan.org.uk today and see our latest awareness advertising to help us reach and support even more people affected by cancer.

 Did you know?

• Around four to five new patients per 1000 on your list will be diagnosed with cancer each year (the younger the age profile of your practice, the lower this figure is likely to be)
• Around 25 patients per 1000 on your list are LIVING WITH cancer – do you know who they are?
• Three to four were diagnosed last year
• Eight to nine were diagnosed one to five years ago
• Six to seven were diagnosed five to ten years ago
• Six to seven were diagnosed 10-20 years ago.