Providing community oral chemotherapy services

VIDALL C. (2010) European Journal of Cancer Care19, 29–34
Providing community oral chemotherapy services

A plethora of oral chemotherapeutic agents have been introduced in recent years leading to new challenges for chemotherapy services, especially in supporting patients to manage their treatment safely in their own homes. Recent UK documents have highlighted patient safety issues with oral chemotherapy, underlining the principle that oral chemotherapy should be managed to the same standards as intravenous chemotherapy. In order to help address these issues, independent health care providers have developed collaborative programmes working with National Health Service Cancer Centres to provide care locally and deliver cancer treatments to patient's homes. Some of the key objectives of these home services are optimal patient education, contact with chemotherapy trained home nurses, toxicity management and adherence with therapy, while maintaining the clinical responsibility for the patient's overall care with the Consultant oncologist at the Cancer Centre. The provision of oral chemotherapy drugs using this or similar models of care, offers a more cost effective way for the purchasers of healthcare services to deliver an effective oral chemotherapy service. This is facilitated by preferable taxation arrangements in the UK for medication delivered to the patient's own home which reduces both cost and demand on acute hospital facilities, and greatly improves the quality of life for patients who no longer need to make frequent and prolonged visits to hospital for their treatment to be prescribed and dispensed.