Statewide Collaboration to Improve Cancer Survivorship Care
This strategic partnership between the VICS and the Australian Cancer Survivorship Centre (ACSC) facilitated a statewide approach to high-quality survivorship care. It had 3 broad project objectives:
- Support VICS member services to ensure appropriate policies are in place – specifically, the Victorian Quality Cancer Survivorship Care Framework and Template (2021)
- Collaborate to implement survivorship models of care
- Improve VICS and member services’ confidence, capacity, and capability around survivorship care.
An experience-based co-design approach was used throughout project delivery, building upon lessons learned and momentum created by the ACSC Embed and Spread project: In co-designing an approach to implementing survivorship models of care, we were guided by what hospitals told us in the Embed and Spread baseline site survey regarding their survivorship care practices and what they would like further support on.
Impacts
Survivorship care quality improvement pilots were undertaken in 2023, focused on improving the use of needs assessment and survivorship care plans following treatment, at 13 Victorian health services including:
By November 2023, three regional health services had put in place policies to demonstrate their commitment to quality survivorship care, using the Victorian Quality Cancer Survivorship Care Policy Template:
- Northeast Health Wangaratta (supported by HRICS)
- Seymour Health
- Kyabram District Health Service.
PICS has also developed resources for survivors of childhood cancer and their families, and implemented them across:
- Monash Children’s Hospital
- The Royal Children’s Hospital.
Contact
For more information on the statewide collaboration, including implementation in both adult and childhood cancer services, please email PICS Service Improvement Project Lead Hannah Pring at hannah.pring@rch.org.au.