Urgent Suspected Cancer

Policies

Biological and bioequivalent/biosimilar medicines

Pathways

Brain / CNS cancer Breast cancer Cancer of unknown primary (MUO) Childhood cancer ENT cancer Gynaecological cancer Haematological cancer Lower GI / colorectal cancer Lung cancer Malignant lymph nodes (below clavicle) Maxillofacial / head and neck cancer Metastatic spinal cord compression Palliative & end of life care Rapid Diagnostic Centre (vague symptoms) Skin cancer Suspected sarcoma-soft tissue / sarcoma-bone Upper GI cancer Urological cancer

Additional information

  • If administrative or clinical staff require Gateway training please contact the RSS team - hnyicb-voy.rsservice@nhs.net
  • The hospital are struggling with Urgent Suspected Cancer referrals in some specialties and we have therefore decided that Urgent Suspect Cancer guidance should be updated to have this message on them:
Referrers: If your patient does not meet any of the NICE defined Urgent Suspected Cancer criteria please liaise (by phone or Advice and Guidance) with a specialist or submit as a standard urgent referral. Please do not annotate USC referrals with your own criteria.
The criteria are chosen regionally by specialists and GPs to help optimise the early diagnosis of cancer. Varying the criteria risks overwhelming clinics and preventing patients who are more likely to have cancer being seen within two weeks.
  • The RSS team have been asked not to accept annotated Urgent Suspected Cancer forms and to ask referrers to follow this guidance.
     

Additional resources

Acute oncology nursing service

Does your patient have complications of their treatment (incl. chemotherapy) or disease? Do you need advice?

If so, contact the Acute Oncology team on 01904 724519

Monday - Friday 9.00am- 5.00pm.