Barriers and facilitators to integrated cancer care between primary and secondary care: a scoping review

This scoping review identifies and characterises reported barriers and facilitators to providing integrated cancer care reported in the international literature, and develops recommendations for clinical practice.

This scoping review included literature published between 2009 and 2022 and describes the delivery of integrated cancer care between primary and secondary care sectors. Searches were conducted of an online database Ovid Medline and grey literature.

The review included thirty-two papers. Barriers and facilitators to integrated cancer care were identified in three core areas: (1) at an individual user level around patient-healthcare professional interactions, (2) at an organisational level, and (3) at a healthcare system level. The review findings identified a need for further training for primary care professionals on cancer care, clarity in the delineation of primary care and oncologist roles (i.e. who does what), effective communication and engagement between primary and secondary care, and the provision of protocols and guidelines for follow-up care in cancer.

Information sharing and communication between primary and secondary care must improve to meet the increasing demand for support for people living with and beyond cancer. Delivering integrated pathways between primary and secondary care will yield improvements in patient outcomes and health economic costs.