Cancer Pathway Tracker

Job overview

We are looking for Cancer Pathway Trackers to assist with the coordination and management of patients undergoing cancer diagnosis and treatment within South Warwickshire Foundation Trust.

The post holders will be key members of the cancer services team, proactively monitoring new/suspected/confirmed patients against the key performance indicator waiting times.  To ensure that suspected/confirmed cancer patient journeys are tracked against target and raise alerts re potential breaches to appropriate staff to assist in prevention of such breaches.

The position offers an agile working arrangement, combining both office-based and remote work. While some days may be spent working from home, the number of remote working days will depend on the needs of the service. The successful candidate will be expected to work from the office as required.

The ideal candidate will have prior experience working within the NHS, along with administrative experience and a solid understanding of cancer plans, standards, and targets.

Main duties of the job

The post holder will be a key member of the cancer services team, proactively monitoring new/suspected/confirmed patients against the key performance indicator waiting times.  To ensure that suspected/confirmed cancer patient journeys are tracked against target and raise alerts re potential breaches to appropriate staff to assist in prevention of such breaches.

The post holder will also play a key role in contributing to the data collection required for the National Cancer Audits. By ensuring the accurate and timely collection of audit data, the post holder will contribute to the trust’s ability to meet national benchmarks and improve patient outcomes.

This position is vital to maintaining the high-quality information that underpins the cancer pathway, ensuring that patients receive timely and effective care.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

Main Duties & Responsibilities

• To monitor patient journey against 28/31 and 62 day cancer waiting time targets ensuring that each patient pathway is monitored against agreed pathways and in accordance with the Trusts Escalation Policy
• Maintain robust data collection systems ensuring that clinical and non- clinical information, covering all aspects of the patient’s cancer journey is collected in a timely fashion and entered onto the cancer database and site specific tracking tools as applicable.  This will, as a minimum, meet the requirements for the Minimum Data Set (MDS) and monitoring of cancer waiting times
• Co-ordinate and record patient treatment appointments, communicating them to relevant staff and patients
• Monitoring and amending data input to ensure accuracy and produce regular reports on the performance of the department in meeting waiting times
• To liaise with diagnostic departments and clinical specialty staff across the Trust regarding patient appointment and care plans to ensure compliance with all agreed timescales to ensure cancer waiting time targets are met and that all appointments are in accordance with the Trust Escalation Policy
• To work closely with MDT Co-ordinators to clarify queries and ensure that parts of the patients journey are clearly identified, recorded and monitored
• To highlight potential breaches to targets as appropriate and identify appointments to be brought forward
• Ensure that all information is correctly recorded on Somerset for all patients referred from another Hospital, to enable the Trust to monitor against all existing targets and patient pathways
• Liaise closely with referring Hospitals to ensure that all relevant information is available to enable discussion at MDT (radiology images etc)
• To ensure that all data is accurately recorded on Somerset to ensure that patients are fully discussed at MDT, to include investigation reports  and pathology reports
• To record any amendments to the patient journey on SCR database
• To participate in the weekly cancer PTL performance meetings and follow up any agreed actions
• To provide cover for Cancer services colleagues and to include the co-ordination of site-specific MDT meetings during periods of annual leave and sickness absence

Communications and Working Relationships:

• Maintain close communication with the Cancer Patient Pathway Facilitators & MDT Co-ordinators; updating them on a regular basis on work progress and alerting them of any problems that may result in a delay in the patient’s treatment.

• Liaise with all relevant departments; administrative, clerical, medical and nursing to ensure outpatient and inpatient appointments are booked in a timely manner. Support the Cancer Patient Pathway Facilitators to send and receive tertiary referrals and investigation / treatments results for patients from other Provider organisations in line with the local agreements and national targets.

• Ensure effective communication with nursing staff, medical teams and other co-ordinators to ensure the organisation and coordination of timely management of all patients on a cancer pathway.

• Communicate with medical, clerical and management potentially sensitive and contentious information in the progression of the patients’ pathway.
• Feedback any comments or suggestions received from service users to all members of the multi-disciplinary team and help facilitate any changes made to improve the patient pathway.