The NHS has launched ‘The Cancer Commissioning Tool’ (CCT) developed by IT services company, Concentra. The CCT will help NHS managers, specialists in public health, senior staff within networks and clinicians develop better cancer-fighting strategies at a local level, based on national data and standards.

The new system brings together information that had previously only been available in piecemeal fashion to give the health service a much more comprehensive view of cancer care across England. The system will also help create greater NHS efficiency by allowing important activities like checking costs of new medicines to be done just once.

Richard Hancox, Associate Director of Commissioning at the National Cancer Action Team, commented, “I am convinced a lot of positive results will flow from the CCT. I also foresee that the success of the CCT can be built upon in other disease areas in the NHS.”

The Cancer Commissioning Toolkit works by helping local cancer networks obtain the fullest picture on all the most promising new cancer treatments, benchmark their performance and share vital information with other parts of the NHS. The main users are managers in Primary Care Trusts, who will use it to better plan their local cancer treatment strategies, working to national guidelines as outlined in the NHS’ Cancer Reform Strategy, with the ongoing aim of improving the UK’s cancer treatment record.