R Ashley stressed that although the way of collecting and evaluating the data has changed, practice in the hospitals has not and patients are still being treated promptly.
M Barnes highlighted a concern that patients who enter the system as a Two Week Wait referral may not give sufficient priority to their appointments because their GP did not explain that the referral is linked to a suspicion of cancer. The Trust is working with GPs to encourage them to be more open with patients and has used the feedback on this topic previously given by the UIG which clearly endorses patients’ preference for frankness.

J Norman said that when the new system was first introduced patients were allocated appointment dates with no choice or opportunity to negotiate around other commitments so some non­ attendance was inevitable. A Saunders hopes that the introduction of Choose and Book will improve the situation and that the new targets are desirable and can be met. M Barnes is doubtful whether the targets can feasibly be reduced any further (7 days has been mentioned) because of unavoidable constraints such as the time needed to develop tissue samples to permit the most informative analysis. A new 2 week target for patients with any breast symptoms comes into effect from December 2009.

J Norman observed that the two week wait target is nearly being achieved but the treatment targets are less well achieved later in the pathways. He also pointed out that other European countries have similar or tighter targets and seem able to meet them.

ASWCS User Involvement Group Away Day 8 Oct 2009 Engineers House, Clifton Down, Bristol
Roger Sutton gave a summary of the Away Day that he and Heather attended on our behalf. The aim of the meeting was to offer members of the group an opportunity to review the future direction of the UIG and its position within the ASWCS Network. Topics covered included the Network Structure; Future directions for the group, what works well, what could be improved; Relationships within and outside the UIG; 3 year strategy for user involvement and a Cancer Myths questionnaire.



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