Article Text

Download PDFPDF
S21 Developing NHS england’s national targeted lung health check pilot
  1. RW Lee1,
  2. A Nair2,
  3. C Stacey3,
  4. D Fitzgerald3,
  5. S Quaife2,
  6. P Sasieni4,
  7. S Janes2,
  8. D Baldwin5
  1. 1Royal Marsden Hospital and Institute of Cancer Research NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, London, UK
  2. 2University College London Hospitals, London, UK
  3. 3NHS England National Cancer Team, London, UK
  4. 4Kings College London, London, UK
  5. 5Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, Nottingham, UK

Abstract

Introduction The NLST and NELSON studies demonstrated lung cancer mortality reduction from low-dose CT (LDCT) lung cancer screening. Local implementation pilots of ‘Lung Health Checks’ indicate feasibility in the NHS. NHS England will now fund 10 aligned projects for a national Lung Health Check pilot as a major centre-piece of the early diagnosis agenda of the NHS Long Term Plan. We report on methodological approaches to deliver this project and progress towards deployment.

Methods Sites selected from Clinical Commissioning Groups in 10 Cancer Alliances had highest incidence and mortality from lung cancer, excluding those where screening pilots or research projects were already underway. Approximately 600,000 individuals will be invited with an expected 200,000 scans over the next four years, including baseline and 24 month incident round scanning. To support quality and governance, NHS England published a National Protocol (January 2019), are developing a Quality Assurance Framework, minimum dataset, Incidental Findings Protocol and Research Standard (assisted by CRUK). NHSE are supported by the CT Screening Advisory Committee, a sub-group of the Clinical Expert Group for Lung Cancer, NHSE. Cancer Alliances are being assisted in developing detailed delivery plans by the National Cancer Programme team.

Results Detailed delivery plans have been provided by all regions. 47 radiologists will attend a national education program with clearly defined metrics for a national quality assurance training standard including volumetry and computer-aided detection. Standard participant materials are in production and QA evaluator appointed. Data on infrastructure readiness, progress against delivery milestones and final supporting documents relating to quality and governance will be presented.

Conclusions The Lung Health Check program will be a major national flagship for respiratory medicine and a key component of the Long Term Plan aspirations to achieve early stage diagnosis in 75% of cancer cases. The program will inform the international literature on implementation of potentially revolutionary lung cancer screening but careful adherence to QA and demonstration of efficacy through appropriate evaluation is critical. Potential barriers include participant uptake; workforce capacity and data flow/information governance. The Standard Protocol is already being used by several European countries as a template for local protocol development.

On behalf of the CT Screening Advisory Group, Clinical Expert Group for Lung Cancer and NHS England National Cancer Team.

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request Permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.