Project Name: Cornwall Breast Cancer GPwER Capacity Enablement Solution
Project Summary:
This Collaborative Working Project (“CWP”) aims to create capacity and optimise workforce for the early Breast Cancer (“EBC”) service at Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust (“RCHT”), thus improving sustainability and releasing pressure for the breast oncology service for all patients.
This will be achieved by creating a service where non-consultant medical staff, General Practitioners with Extended Roles (“GPwER”) will be trained and upskilled to deliver an Oral Systemic Anti-Cancer Therapy (“SACT”) clinics for patients diagnosed with EBC, at two sites across Cornwall, proposed to be Bodmin (East Cornwall) and Penzance (West Cornwall). The GPwER’s 0.4 / 6 Planned Activities (“PA”) whole time equivalent (“WTE”) will be supported by 1 WTE band 6 nurse and a 0.6 WTE band 4 navigator role.
This project is designed with the long-term sustainability objectives of building capabilities within RCHT and reducing EBC health inequalities by:
- Creating additional capabilities within the existing workforce through comprehensive training and upskilling
- Development of GPwER EBC protocols by the CW Partner aligned with national and local guidelines
- Increasing capacity for management of EBC patients
- Reducing pressure on breast oncology services
- Providing patients with equal access to care irrespective of rurality
- Bringing care closer to the homes of patients
- Demonstrating a new model of care that may be replicated
- Using this project learnings and measures of success to demonstrate the legitimate need to submit a business case for continued funding of this service
Expected Benefits:
Patients
- Improved patient outcomes due to faster time from referral to treatment time.
- Improved access to appropriate NICE recommended oral SACT therapies.
- Enhanced patient experience and satisfaction of the NHS EBC service by reducing unnecessary waiting times.
- Care closer to home
- Reduction in healthcare inequalities
NHS
- Appropriate use of skill set across the service
- Increased capabilities within the health care system
- Accelerated access to services.
- Improved quality of care.
- Reduction in patient waiting lists.
- Improved experience of staff by spreading workload.
Novartis
- Novartis is likely to see positive outcomes as a result of the CWP with the CW Partner. By enhancing the EBC service delivery, the Project aims to improve patient outcomes for those patients with EBC. As more patients are reviewed, there is potential for greater utilisation of Novartis's medicines, in line with national and local guidelines, where appropriate, leading to improved patient care.
- Better understanding of the EBC patient management pathway, improved understanding of the pressure points and priorities associated with the EBC service. This will enable Novartis to build better projects in this therapy area in other regions of the UK.
Start Date & Duration: October 2025 for 24 months
FA-11523738 | September 2025