The next challenge for psycho-oncology in the UK: targeting service quality and outcomes
The acceptance and provision of psychosocial cancer care in the UK is moving forward positively, aided by patient advocacy and psychologically minded healthcare policies. The unfolding challenge now is of targeting the quality and outcomes of clinical psycho-oncology services. This report outlines the clinically led development of UK-focused guidance to challenge psycho-oncology services to achieve and demonstrate their potential. It discusses how the guidance was particularly framed to encourage small, low-resource services, and outlines the potential benefits for patients. Overall, setting ourselves the challenge of quality on the same terms as physical healthcare, we can shape a direct path to achieving parity of esteem in mental with physical healthcare.
It has not been long since Holland, Watson and Dunn, leading figures in international psycho-oncology, set out a future challenge for our field:
“There is urgent work to be done worldwide, both in terms of increasing the availability of psychosocial care services and ensuring these services are well targeted, effective and evidence-based, and worth the investment of time and effort for people with cancer and their families, as well as the resources of community and health-care organizations” [1].
On the ground, this work is being carried out within the UK’s National Health Service (NHS). Psycho-oncology clinical teams are accepted and embedded within NHS cancer centers, and actively weaving the art and science of psychological adaptation into routine medical pathways and processes, thereby improving outcomes, experiences and costs.
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