Advanced Clinical Practitioner leads project to cut cancer wait times

As part of the respiratory in-reach team at Manchester Royal Infirmary (MRI), Elvina Victor saw firsthand how a speciality team could improve patient care. She and her colleagues would go to different wards to assess patients and, as an Advanced Nurse Practitioner (ANP), Elvina would use her expertise to identify those people who needed specialist care.

Using this experience, Elvina led on a new project to develop a rapid lung cancer pathway. Previously, for people who had symptoms of lung cancer, it could be up to 14 days wait for them to get initial investigative scans done, as they waited for the hospital radiology team to have a space available.

To start with, Elvina booked out five slots with the radiology department every week, and she and her team started taking and triaging the referrals themselves to speed up the process for patients at high risk of cancer.

This made for a much quicker and smoother experience for patients and their families at an incredibly difficult time. Elvina and her team were able to book patients in there and then for a scan, with results reviewed immediately by a consultant radiologist and a treatment plan made straight away.

This brought down the average waiting time for patients massively, to 6.5 days compared to 38 days before Elvina set up the project. Unsurprisingly, patient satisfaction with the service has improved, and the outcomes for patients are better too.

One patient commented on the service, saying: ‘‘The nurse practitioner on telephone was very helpful, everything was arranged and explained very well”, while another expressed: ‘’I am grateful for you making it easy for me and my family’’.