Better managing excess treatment costs

Better managing excess treatment costs
NIHR January 2019

• The way in which excess treatment costs are met is changing and a trial period for the new arrangements will roll out from 1 October 2018, through to April 2019.
• Briefings including "Establishment of new arrangements for funding the reimbursement of excess treatment costs from 1 October 2018 " from NHS England (December 2018) provide more detailed information about the new arrangements. 
• The impact of this work will:
• Enable the 15 NIHR Local Clinical Research Networks (LCRNs) to help manage the excess treatment costs process on behalf of their local CCGs and in collaboration with NHS England Specialised Commissioning. This single point of access for all proposals for which excess treatment costs may be applicable is designed to make the process much simpler for researchers to navigate.
• Establish a more rapid, standardised and consistent process for the management of excess treatment costs to avoid delays during study set up and to maximise patient recruitment.
• Set a threshold under which excess treatment costs will need to be absorbed by non-primary care providers participating in studies.

Patient involvement toolkit for researchers

Patient involvement toolkit for researchers
Cancer Research UK

• This toolkit provides guidance, tips and templates to help plan, deliver and evaluate patient involvement in cancer research.

RM Partners Annual Review 2017/18

RM Partners Annual Review 2017/18
RM Partners 10 December 2018
Description of work of the RM Partnership Cancer Alliance including

• Pathway redesign projects (Colorectal pathway redesign, Low dose CT case finding in lung cancer, National Optimal Lung Cancer Pathway, RAPID: shortening the diagnostic prostate pathway, Multidisciplinary diagnostic clinic pilots).
• Digital Solutions programme - aimed at designing a digital infrastructure that improves operational effciencies, as well as enhancing patient and clinician experience. Working with the NHS Healthy London Partnership (HLP) including development of a London Health and Care Information Exchange (LHCIE) infrastructure, which will provide a platform to enable all London NHS and social care providers to access and to share patient documentation based on agreed pathways, including cancer.
• Informatics - including partnership with Public Health England to develop national tools to enable cancer registration data to be used locally by Cancer Alliances and other NHS stakeholders.
• RM Partners pathway groups share experience, best practice and innovation in the delivery of services

Supporting Research in the NHS: response to consultation on ETCs and commercial research

NHS England’s response to the public consultation: “Supporting Research in the NHS: A consultation covering changes to simplify arrangements for research in the NHS and associated changes to the terms of the NHS Standard Contract”
NHS England 4 May 2018

• A summary of responses received to the consultation on simplifying arrangements relating to Excess Treatment Costs (ETCs) in non-commercial research and commercial contract research. accompanied by details of 12 agreed actions to support and apply research in the NHS. 
• Specialised Commissioning will be developing a new process to be unified with the new ETC management process. The intention is to publish a planned specialised commissioning process by end of June 2018 which will be tested with stakeholders. 

Report of the task and finish working group on brain tumour research

Report of the task and finish working group on brain tumour research
Department of Health and Social Care 22 February 2018

• The working group looked at removing barriers to research, and generating high-quality research applications.
• A ‘map’ of current UK brain tumour research activity is set out in Appendix 3.
• Current major investments in UK research infrastructure are set out in Appendix 4.
• Areas of opportunity highlighted by the group were Biobanking, Neurosciences and brain development, Diagnosis (incl Detection technologies and Routes to diagnosis, Treatment (incl Radiotherapy, Drugs, Drug repurposing) and Surgery.