In this episode, host Steve Bland takes a look behind the scenes at the vital work going on when it comes to diagnosing cancer, and the stringent safety checks in place.

Steve is joined by Ben Lamb, MDT Clinical Lead for the North East London Cancer Alliance and Ellen Quinney, Programme Manager, Diagnosis and Treatment, North East London Cancer Alliance, as they talk about bringing in the experts for a cancer diagnosis.

Ben and Ellen explain how when cancer is diagnosed, you are not just getting a single opinion, but one from a team of experts with a range of different skills and expertise. This is a key area of focus for the cancer alliance, looking at how improvements can be made to this process to speed up the time of results for patients, so that the right treatment can be provided at the right time.

Meetings to discuss a cancer patient’s diagnosis and treatment are called Multi Disciplinary Team Meetings, or MDTs. They are where a group of health and care staff who are members of different organisations and professions (e.g. GPs, clinicians, nurses) come together to make decisions regarding the treatment of individual cancer patients.

Ben and Ellen are leading a vital programme of work to improve the effectiveness of these MDTs. A key part of this is called Streamlining. This helps ensure that more complex cases go through a full MDT and more straightforward, easier-to-treat cases get support via a triage meeting and then progress to treatment quickly.

The benefit of this is that in simpler cases, patients get treatment more quickly and, at the same time, capacity for MDTs is increased for patients with more complex needs, so they can get the specialist levels of support required.