Early support in primary care for people starting treatment for cancer
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Early support in primary care for people starting palliative cancer treatments: a feasibility, randomised controlled study.
IRAS ID
243938
Contact name
Kirsty Boyd
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
NHS Lothian
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 7 months, 31 days
Research summary
People diagnosed with serious cancers may benefit from palliative care while receiving treatment for the cancer. Currently, most people miss out on this. Research shows that early palliative care helps shared decision-making about what treatments and care will be of most benefit to an individual. Early palliative care given alongside cancer treatment means more support for people with serious cancers and their families. It may be helpful for people to see their GP and primary care team regularly but this does not happen reliably enough.
This is an initial study in one Scottish Cancer Centre. When chemotherapy starts, patients with cancer of the gullet, stomach or pancreas will be invited to take part and then randomly allocated to an intervention (25 people) or usual care (25 people). Intervention patients will receive a letter from their oncologist asking them to make an early appointment with their GP and some information about ways they can plan ahead. Their GP gets a copy of this letter and is asked to offer early palliative care focusing on anticipatory care planning and starting a Scottish electronic anticipatory care plan for out-of-hours services. We hope this will mean people have more support from their GP practice as well their oncology team.
We will look at how this extra support works by comparing the experiences and quality of life of people who get the specific letter suggesting they visit their GP and those who get normal care. We will use questionnaires and interviews with patients, family carers and GPs. We will assess the use of services, hospital admissions, electronic care plans and health and care outcomes including place of death. People who take part will benefit as will many other people with similar types of cancer when the study findings are reported and disseminated.REC name
West of Scotland REC 4
REC reference
18/WS/0135
Date of REC Opinion
14 Aug 2018
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion