Prostate cancer follow-up needs: do patients and professionals agree?

Area of Science:

• Oncology
• Health Services Research
• Patient Experience

Background:

• Healthcare economics necessitate reviewing National Health Service (NHS) practices.
• Prostate cancer care requires evaluating current follow-up protocols.

Purpose of the Study:

• Investigate perceived benefits of routine prostate cancer patient follow-up.
• Examine patient and professional views on prostate cancer follow-up location, timing, and personnel.

Main Methods:

• Service evaluation in a specialist cancer urology unit within an acute NHS trust.
• Data collection via patient (n=47) and professional (n=17) questionnaires.
• Qualitative data from a patient group discussion (n=52).

Main Results:

• Consensus on follow-up goals: prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing and urinary symptom assessment.
• Majority preference for hospital-based, face-to-face consultations every six months.
• Over 95% of patients emphasized the importance of easy access to urology cancer nurses and doctors.

Conclusions:

• Patients favor traditional hospital follow-up, which is economically unsustainable.
• Developing new models requires patient collaboration to ensure perceived needs are met.
• Patients need assurance of expert access and timely referral back to the urology team for new models to succeed.
• Nurses are well-positioned to lead the development of innovative follow-up services.