Cancer care after the National Health Service reforms.

摘要

The Lancet Oncology's Commission1 makes a valuable contribution to the debate about the future of cancer care. The challenges of treatment for such a complex disease are many, and in the UK the present round of National Health Service (NHS) reforms offer real scope for fresh emphases to drive forward the quality and success of cancer care.The media coverage of the reforms has overwhelmingly focused on changes to commissioning structures. Many important questions are unanswered, such as how general practitioners (family doctors) are going to commission specialist cancer services and ensure they remain integrated. However, in my opinion these changes are a distraction from the most important aspect of these reforms-namely the new focus on outcomes. For many years the NHS has pursued a culture of targets rather than focusing on quality of care.