A presentation about one of our new ‘One-Stop’ clinics – which aim to reduce the number of hospital visits for patients and lead to faster diagnosis of cancer cases – has collected first prize at a regional event.
The abstract about our One-Stop Prostate Clinic was authored by members of our medical team – Mohamed Mustafa, Marc Lyons, Lokesh Suraparaju, David Manson-Bahr and Vinod Shenoy – and was presented by Dr Mustafa at the Eastern Urology Group meeting held in November. Dr Mustafa, who is a Clinical Fellow in Urology at the James Paget, was awarded the Andrew Ball prize as this was said to be the clear winner across content, delivery, slides and a question & answer session, scoring a total of 91%.
The presentation highlighted the work and success of our One-Stop Prostate Clinic, that was set up in March 2022 to help those who have symptoms that could be linked to prostate cancer. Men who visit their GP with symptoms that require further investigation are referred to hospital and then triaged by our Urology-Oncology Clinical Nurse Specialists.
Our photos show members of the specialist nursing and one-stop clinic team.
These specialist nurses then arrange to telephone the patient and go through a number of questions around general health and any medical conditions, which allows them to gather information to identify whether the patient would be eligible and meet the criteria to attend the One-Stop clinic.
Those who are suitable for the clinic are then booked in for the next available appointment, where they will have all investigations – including any necessary tests, examinations and scans - carried out in one visit to the hospital, rather than face multiple appointments to have the various different tests that may need to be done.
The aim is to make the path to diagnosis faster, reducing the time patients have to wait to find out whether their symptoms are cancer or not and, in the event of a cancer diagnosis, allowing treatment to start sooner.
The clinic can also provide support at an early stage if a cancer diagnosis is identified.
Dr Vinod Shenoy said; “We are the only trust in the East of England to run a one stop prostate cancer service and this is a real multi-disciplinary team effort, with departments including Urology, MRI and Radiology, doctors, nurses, allied health professionals and admin staff all working together to provide compassionate, safe and effective patient care.
“We have seen dozens of patients since the service started in March 2022 and we are working towards more people being able to use this service as it develops.”
The clinic has been set up and run with support from a variety of individuals and teams, including Divisional Operations Director Jonathan Harrowven, Deputy Lead Nurse Sarah Burroughs, our Clinical Nurse Specialists Siji Blinto, Jincy Bilgy, Wendy Keenan, June Howard and Katie Crosby, Project Manager Danielle Cadd and Business Manager Charlie Bird.
The team would also like to thank our local prostate support group, who donated the couch for Prostate biopsies, and our Day Care Unit for their assistance with running the clinics smoothly.
The Prostate Clinic is one of a number of departments at the James Paget to have ‘one-stop’ service, with clinics to diagnose neck lumps, and haematuria (blood in urine), now well established too. These are all examples of integrated care within the hospital, focused on the experience of patients and their needs, and aimed at providing rapid, effective support and treatment. Our hospital and our team are invested in implementing one-stop clinics with the aim of detecting cancer as early as possible.
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men and in the UK more than 52,000 men are diagnosed with this type of cancer each year – equivalent to 143 men a day. One in eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime with around 475,000 men in the UK living with and after a prostate cancer diagnosis. In England more than 10,000 men die from prostate cancer every year.
Find out more, check your risk and get support, if you or a loved one would like this, via Prostate Cancer UK; https://prostatecanceruk.org/
Prostate cancer is not always life threatening but when it is, the earlier the diagnosis the more likely it is to be cured.