This year sees ‘Peer Reviews’ of CUP services in hospitals throughout England. Based on the 2010 NICE Guideline for CUP, a series of ‘measures’ were instituted against which hospitals multi-disciplinary CUP teams are assessed for their compliance. The reviews are very thorough and check such things as: the correct composition of the CUP team and whether the personnel involved have sufficient time in their workloads ; the distribution of CUP policy throughout the hospital; the attendance at meetings throughout the year; how well the guidelines and local protocols are working; patient information on CUP; clinical indicators and many other things.The reviews are organised by the Quality Surveillance Team, on behalf of NHS England, and take place over a day. The review team is likely to include an oncologist, a nurse, a manager, a pathologist and, very importantly, a patient representative.
It is difficult to overstate the value of this external ‘Peer Review’ process in raising the standards of management and treatment of CUP patients throughout England (it only applies to England). The results, when published later this year, will show how ‘compliant’ each hospital is with the measures. In addition to raising standards nationally, the data will help patients identify top performing CUP teams.