Twelve projects supporting patients in Scotland with cancer are to share £1.5m of Scottish government funding this year.

The funding will support Single Point of Contact (SPoC) teams to provide cancer patients with an individual to support them throughout their care journey.

SPoC aims to ensure patients have ongoing communication and support that puts them ‘at the heart’ of all decisions and actions involving their treatment and care.

Confirming the funding this week, the Scottish government said that the £1.5m will benefit staff and patients, and will be delivered according to the needs of individual health boards.

It will go towards staffing dedicated healthcare support worker roles, cancer care coordinator roles, developing regional approaches to digital remote follow-ups with patients, and delivering telephone-based services.

NHS Lothian has been awarded £343,740 to support its telephone-based SPoC service for cancer patients across the South East Cancer Networks.

Initial evaluation has found this diverts around 40% of calls away from the clinical nurse specialist workload, improving the quality of phone contacts. Patients report being highly satisfied with the support service.

Katie Gibson, Neuroendocrine Tumour Clinical Nurse Specialist at the Edinburgh Cancer Centre, said: 

“I've seen first-hand how the SPoC service has transformed our ability to care for cancer patients.

“The centralised system streamlines communication and allows us to spend more quality time with those who need it most. As a result, patients are aware of who to contact for the support and advice they require from diagnosis, treatment and beyond.”

Meeting with nurses at Edinburgh Cancer Centre with experience of the SPoC service as he announced the funding, First Minister John Swinney said:

“By taking in the region of 2,000 calls per month and providing person-centred support to those patients throughout their care journey, the Edinburgh Single Point of Contact project provides consistent access for patients to have conversations about their care, freeing up capacity for specialist staff to focus on the most complex cases.”

This comes after Scotland Policy Conference on cancer provision heard that the cancer workforce is “not going in the right trajectory”, with rural areas struggling with staffing gaps.

Of Scotland’s 14 regional health boards, 12 are set to receive a share of the funding for 2024-25.

Three cancer care co-ordinators will be funded to provide support across a variety of sites in NHS Borders and NHS Highland funding will create seven cancer support worker posts, providing tailored support throughout diagnosis and treatment.

In Forth Valley, the health board will employ two healthcare support workers to provide a SPoC service for seven tumour groups.

NHS Ayrshire and Arran, NHS Forth Valley, Greater Glasgow and Clyde and Lanarkshire will share funding to develop digital remote follow up for prostate cancer patients in the West of Scotland.

NHS Fife will use £107,354 to staff a SPoC hub dealing with all urgent suspected cancer referrals.

Three posts will provide a joint service working alongside Macmillan Navigators in NHS Grampian, providing support after an Urgent Suspicion of Cancer referral.

NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde will use £67,566 for two support workers to add to its specialist gynaecological nursing support and a further £141,324 will go towards four SPoC roles for people diagnosed with lung cancer.

In NHS Tayside, funding will be directed towards support for people diagnosed with advanced tumours, lung, renal and prostate cancer.

Meanwhile, NHS Western Isles will employ two healthcare support workers as part of the Macmillan team to support people with all types of cancer.

Healthcare Improvement Scotland will assess all 12 projects to identify best practice and how best to scale and expand these pilots.

First Minister John Swinney said:

“We are fully focused on improving cancer survival, and delivering excellent and accessible care is at the core of how we do that.

“The Single Point of Contact service meets requirements identified by boards to deliver improvements in communication and support for patients with navigating cancer care.”

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