Southern Melbourne cancer survivorship scoping project

The Southern Melbourne Integrated Cancer Services (SMICS) is undertaking a project to improve the monitoring and delivery of cancer survivorship care across the southern Melbourne region.

Cancer survivorship care supports patients to achieve the best possible quality of life following primary cancer treatment. This includes monitoring for cancer recurrence, managing the physical and psychosocial impacts of cancer and its treatment, and supporting ongoing health and wellbeing.

Survivorship care is recognised as an essential component of contemporary cancer care and is embedded within Optimal Care Pathways, clinical guidelines, and the Victorian Cancer Plan.

Advances in cancer diagnosis technologies and treatments are contributing to improved outcomes across the SMICS region, with 73% of people surviving five years or more after their diagnosis and living with and beyond cancer.

As the number of cancer survivors continues to grow, there is an increasing need for health services to provide coordinated, evidence-based survivorship care that addresses both the physical and psychosocial needs of patients.

This scoping project aims to develop an agreed approach to survivorship care in the SMICS catchment. This will include defining metrics, outcome measures and agreed survivorship standard of care for cancer patients in the SMICS catchment.

Project objectives:

• Establish an expert survivorship advisory group to support collaboration across health services within the SMICS region
• Map the current state of survivorship care across the SMICS catchment
• Support SMICS member health services who do not currently have an organisational survivorship policy to implement cancer survivorship policies and practices.
• Standardised survivorship metrics and outcome measures are established
• Determine a stage 2 pilot project in health services, including investigation of innovation/ automation in survivorship care.
• The SMICS survivorship model of health service engagement is adopted by the broader Integrated Cancer Services (ICS) that comprise the Victorian Integrated Cancer Services (VICS).

Contact the project team:

SMICS Senior Project Manager Jodi Drumbrell
SMICS Senior Project Manager Tracey Bucki