The CRUK Cambridge Centre has recently been re-accredited as a Comprehensive Cancer Centre by the Organisation of European Cancer Institutes (OECI).
Now OECI, under the lead authorship of Simon Oberst, Director of Clinical Development of the CRUK Cambridge Centre and Chair of the OECI’s Accreditation Board, has published a paper in The Lancet Oncology recommending a newly-defined list of 100 core standards to measure and improve the quality of cancer care, treatment and research in Cancer Centres across Europe.
The standards were worked up through a rigorous expert consensus process, building on OECI’s Accreditation and Designation Programme established in 2008. Fifty of the leading cancer centres across Europe are in the OECI Accreditation Programme, including Cambridge, the Christie, Kings Health Partners and most centres in Cancer Core Europe.
The OECI assessment process includes both self-assessment against standard criteria and an independent evaluation by a team of external experts from different disciplines. Uniquely among cancer accreditation programmes worldwide, the programme assesses the extent of integration of research and clinical care across each cancer centre, and the translation of research findings into practice changes in cancer treatment. Other systems either examine clinical care or the quality of cancer research alone.
The standards fall into the nine categories covering the entire patient pathway: governance of the cancer centre; organisation of quality systems; patient involvement and empowerment; multidisciplinarity; prevention and early detection; diagnosis; treatment and care; research; and education and training.
Simon Oberst says, “These 100 core standards will not only provide a practical benchmark for comparing and improving the performance of cancer centres but will also support important cancer policy objectives, especially the aim to reduce variation in quality and access to treatment and clinical trials.”
Reference
Simon Oberst, Wim van Harten, Gunnar Sæter, Paolo de Paoli, Péter Nagy, Jean-Benoit Burrion, József Lovey, Thierry Philip 100 European core quality standards for cancer care and research centres The Lancet Oncology, Volume 21, Issue 8, p 1009-1011, August 01, 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S1470-2045(20)30318-1
