Cancer Navigation Hub

Background

NHS Lothian has been awarded funding by the Scottish Government to support patients diagnosed with cancer. This service will initially run for a 12 month trial period and will cover a selected number of cancer types.

What is the Cancer Navigation Hub?

A phone-based Cancer Navigation Hub has been developed to answer calls from patients and healthcare professionals covering all cancer related enquiries. The team is made up of Cancer Pathway Coordinators. They are responsible for signposting service users to the appropriate healthcare area using their knowledge base of cancer pathways and working together with the many services across NHS Lothian and external partners, like MacMillan (Improving the Cancer Journey) and Maggie’s.

Who is it for?

This service is for anyone diagnosed with the following types of cancer (which have been selected for this trial):

• Urology
• Gynaecological
• Head and Neck
• Lung
• Melanoma (skin)
• Neuroendocrine
• Breast

When is it available?

The Cancer Navigation Hub will be open for inbound calls Monday-Friday 9am-5pm (closed on most public holidays). Information on appropriate out-of-hours services is available on a pre-recorded message.

What help does it offer?

The Cancer Navigation Hub has been designed to help service users to navigate their way through, what can often be, complex cancer pathways. Calls will be directed to the most appropriate care team(s) including the cancer treatment helpline, clinical nurse specialist teams, treatment day units, and will act as a link to introduce patients to external agencies such as Macmillan (Improving the Cancer Journey) and Maggie’s for non-health related cancer support.

Cancer Pathway Coordinators are trained to help patients with a variety of enquiries such as checking and rearranging appointments, scheduling of treatments, transport enquiries, and accessing interpretation and translation services.