Freedom of Information request results in better outcomes for Scottish patients
During one of FBC’s Scottish Steering Group Meetings, retired GP Johnstone Shaw raised concerns about patients with haematuria (blood in urine) calling NHS24 and being missed by the triaging algorithms. Johnstone explained that he knew of a few patients whose treatment was delayed by several weeks because when they had called NHS24 with haematuria, they had not been told that they needed to urgently see a GP to investigate their symptoms. Johnstone explained that conveying urgency in some cases was critical to catching bladder cancer early and improving outcomes for patients.
To delve into this, Fight Bladder Cancer’s Scottish Steering Group submitted a Freedom of Information Request(FOI) to NHS24 to find out more about how NHS24 triaging algorithms deal with and flag up patients presenting with bladder cancer symptoms.
As a result of our FOI request, and then an additional request for review, we were granted a meeting with a NHS24 Nurse Consultant to raise our concerns. At the meeting, we learned that NHS24 had no special alerts around painless or repeat haematuria in their system at present. We explained why this was a problem and could potentially result in many bladder cancer patients not understanding the urgency of their symptoms and cause a delay in their treatment.
Coming out of the conversation with FBC, NHS24 agreed to task their Clinical Change Governance group with putting additional alerts into the triaging algorithm for haematuria. They have also input questions into the system to help get an idea of a patients UTI history/frequency and made it so that this information will get added to a patient’s file and be passed on to their clinician.
In addition, NHS24 committed to checking their upcoming self help UTI guidance and place a ‘minimal referral guidance’ note on the appropriate combinations of these symptoms in light of our discussion.
We are hopeful that these changes will help many bladder cancer patients in Scotland catch their cancer and start treatment as early as possible.