Help us create a Senior Adult Oncology Programme

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Consultation has concluded


Jen Newman, Senior Specialist Dietitian with older patientConsultant Susan Lalondrelle with female Asian patient


Establishing a team dedicated to the care of older adults being managed at The Royal Marsden


Background

With the support of our West London Cancer Alliance RM Partners, we are establishing a Senior Adult Oncology Programme (SAOP) team dedicated to the care of older adults being managed at The Royal Marsden.

This team will include different professions (doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, dieticians, pharmacists, psychologists and social workers) and aim to provide these patients a more personalised treatment approach. This approach can reduce the risk of side effects and inpatient admissions on anticancer drug therapies and surgery and improve patients’ quality of life.

Our plan

We will start implementing this new model of care in the Breast Unit medical oncology clinics at the Sutton site of the hospital in November 2021.

In these clinics, older patients with breast cancer being considered for anticancer drug therapy will meet a dedicated doctor, nurse, physiotherapist, occupational therapist, dietician and pharmacist who will provide them with specific recommendations on the management of their cancer and any additional problems based on their individual circumstances.

Upon successful implementation of this model by the end of 2022, we will gradually expand the service and the SAOP team to include also older individuals diagnosed with different tumours and being considered for surgery.

Get involved

Share your ideas - What would make an excellent Senior Adult Oncology Programme? What should our priorities be? Add your own idea or like and comment on ideas already posted

Leave a comment - What is the one thing you want to say? Do you have any thoughts or comments you would like to share? Tell us what is on your mind here

Ask us a question - Want to know more about how this service will look? Interested in what the team will look like and how it will operate?

Register your interest in getting involved - email [email protected] if you want to work with us to build this service

If this is your first visit to Cancer Patients' Voice register so you can keep up to date with all the chances to get involved in improving cancer research and services.


Jen Newman, Senior Specialist Dietitian with older patientConsultant Susan Lalondrelle with female Asian patient


Establishing a team dedicated to the care of older adults being managed at The Royal Marsden


Background

With the support of our West London Cancer Alliance RM Partners, we are establishing a Senior Adult Oncology Programme (SAOP) team dedicated to the care of older adults being managed at The Royal Marsden.

This team will include different professions (doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, dieticians, pharmacists, psychologists and social workers) and aim to provide these patients a more personalised treatment approach. This approach can reduce the risk of side effects and inpatient admissions on anticancer drug therapies and surgery and improve patients’ quality of life.

Our plan

We will start implementing this new model of care in the Breast Unit medical oncology clinics at the Sutton site of the hospital in November 2021.

In these clinics, older patients with breast cancer being considered for anticancer drug therapy will meet a dedicated doctor, nurse, physiotherapist, occupational therapist, dietician and pharmacist who will provide them with specific recommendations on the management of their cancer and any additional problems based on their individual circumstances.

Upon successful implementation of this model by the end of 2022, we will gradually expand the service and the SAOP team to include also older individuals diagnosed with different tumours and being considered for surgery.

Get involved

Share your ideas - What would make an excellent Senior Adult Oncology Programme? What should our priorities be? Add your own idea or like and comment on ideas already posted

Leave a comment - What is the one thing you want to say? Do you have any thoughts or comments you would like to share? Tell us what is on your mind here

Ask us a question - Want to know more about how this service will look? Interested in what the team will look like and how it will operate?

Register your interest in getting involved - email [email protected] if you want to work with us to build this service

If this is your first visit to Cancer Patients' Voice register so you can keep up to date with all the chances to get involved in improving cancer research and services.

Consultation has concluded

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    Hi, what age do you consider senior? DX 55 , 60 now, classed as senior but am very young at heart, look after myself well. Does ‘considered’ for surgery mean some people may be unlucky based on a standard one size fits all criteria?

    Darls asked over 2 years ago

    Thank you very much for your question. This is an excellent comment that highlights the rationale for the development of our Senior Adult Oncology Programme, a comprehensive clinical service dedicated to the care of older adults with cancer at The Royal Marsden.

    Chronological age is a poor descriptor of the complexity of individuals, and this is valid also to those living with and beyond cancer. This means that some adults may be older but fit and doing as well as their younger counterparts, whereas some may be more vulnerable due to additional health problems. Fit older individuals may be safely treated and benefit from the same anticancer treatment approaches that we would offer to younger adults, whereas more vulnerable individuals may require adapted and more personalised treatment plans.

    This also means that in general age cut-offs are arbitrary. However, we are more likely to detect frailty and vulnerabilities in the older age group, and within this work, we have selected 70 years as the age cut-off to develop this new service.

    Within the Senior Adult Oncology Programme, we are now using more precise assessments to determine the overall health of adults aged ≥70 years and to inform discussions around anticancer treatments in the context of their preferences and with the input of a dedicated multidisciplinary team including a doctor, an advanced nurse practitioner, a physiotherapist, an occupational therapist, a dietician and a pharmacist.

    This team is providing patients with a more personalised and holistic approach aiming to better support them before, during and after they receive anticancer drug treatments. This integrated approach is able to reduce the risk of side effects and hospital admissions and improve the quality of life of older adults with cancer undergoing systemic anticancer therapy.

    You can learn more about the field of geriatric oncology and similar care models available worldwide on the International Society of Geriatric Oncology (SIOG) website and on the Cancer and Aging Research Group (CARG) website.