ESTRO 2025 - Abstract Book

S2370

Interdisciplinary – Other

ESTRO 2025

2069

Digital Poster Challenges and successes implementing a new head and neck cancer multidisciplinary radiotherapy service Erica Bennett 1 , Mary Hickey 2 , Aisling Sheehan 1 , Maree Heaney 1 , Michelle Doolan 1 , Mark McGuire 1 , Diarmuid F Duggan 3 , Eavan Fitzgerald 1 , Andrea Hattingh 1 , Mohd M Samuji 1 , Kathy Rock 1 1 Bon Secours Radiotherapy Cork, Bon Secours Radiotherapy Cork in partnership with UPMC Hillman Cancer centre, Cork, Ireland. 2 Bon Secours Radiotherapy Cork, UPMC Ireland, Cork, Ireland. 3 Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, Bon Secours Hospital, Cork, Ireland Head and Neck cancer (HNC) services should be organised around specialist multi-disciplinary teams (MDT) which addresses psychosocial and physical factors¹ to reduce radiotherapy (RT) morbidity and optimize survivorship. Core members include Clinical Nurse Specialists (CNS), Speech and Language Therapists (SLT), Dietician and a Dentist. Access to these skilled professionals can be affected by staffing challenges, caseload demands and time to treatment pressure. This can lead to treatment delays, compromised outcomes and fragmented, suboptimal care 2 . Aims • To implement a new streamlined radiotherapy service for HNC patients which provides patient access to core MDT members • Meets the Irish national cancer Key Performance Indicator (KPI) of 15 days between “ready to treat” date and the first radiotherapy (RT) fraction • Reduces the patient burden of appointments across multiple institutions Material/Methods An established tertiary referral Centre for HNC (the second largest in Ireland) was contacted to establish existing pathways Potential challenges were identified: • Several institutions accessing one specialist HNC team who have limited staffing/resources • No established pathway for referral and co-ordination of MDT services with our center Following the approval of a business proposal, an oncology dietician and specialist HNC SLT were sourced, and each agreed to provide a contracted weekly service onsite. An additional Clinical Nurse Specialist (CNS) was also recruited to address the increased physical, psychosocial and pharmacological needs of patients. Collaboratively, the MDT determined how to implement the optimal pathway in accordance with international best-practice HNC guidelines. Results A multidisciplinary HNC pathway was successfully established (figure 1). A weekly MDT comprising a Dietician, SLT, Clinical nurse specialist (CNS), Radiation Therapist (RTT), Radiation Oncologist and Oncology Registrars was established. Every patient in the pathway is discussed to co-ordinate pre-treatment needs and optimize MDT care. Purpose/Objective Introduction