Did you know that its not only GPs who can do CCRs?

QOF Guidance states that ‘The clinical element of the review should be conducted by a GP, General Practice Nurse, or Allied Health Professional. The use of non-clinical supporting roles should be underpinned by robust links to clinical teams and appropriate training and supervision should be provided’.

Practice Nurses, Social Prescribers, Health and Wellbeing advisors and Cancer Support Workers can all do some or all of the CCR elements required to meet your patients needs. A simple use of the Macmillan Concerns Checklist may help to triage what is needed and who can perform that CCR.

Accessing training for people wishing to upskill is easy and free. There is no national competency available for assessing someone’s ability to perform a CCR, but the trainee and clinical lead for the surgery must agree competency internally before commencing CCRs independently, and a GP must ALWAYS be available for escalation. Below you can see a suggested training pathway and some resources that have been suggested by the BSW Integrated Care Board for primary care.

This starts with a self-assessment against the Macmillan Person Centered Care Competency Framework, where you can identify what skills you already have and areas of improvement. You can then form your Training Needs Analysis from here.

You must be assigned a mentor, from who you can learn the skills needed to carry out an effective and holistic CCR. This should be someone who is comfortable with conducting CCRs and may be your clinical lead for cancer at your practice. You should be able to observe some CCRs and reflect upon these, assessing the skills you may need to strengthen before conducting a CCR under supervision. When you are both comfortable with the skills and assessments needed in a CCR, you will need to agree competency between yourself and your mentor before conducting CCRs unsupervised.

Remember that a CCR is also an opportunity to identify red flags for a cancer clinical emergency, and have appropriate escalation routes for referral. For all oncological emergencies in Swindon, the CNS contact can be emailed at gwh.aosteam@nhs.net or bleeped on 5213/7396.

The Macmillan Learning & Development Hub

Did you know that you can register for free training through the Macmillan Hub?

The 2024 prospectus supports all professionals in primary care in upskilling and have courses available from beginner through to expert levels. Their communications training includes a module about identifying patients mental health concerns and how to safetynet suicidal idealogy. It also recognises the impact of doing CCRs on healthcare professionals and how to look after your own mental health.

The CCR training module is useful in getting started on your training journey, but the new programme launching in 2024 is the Person Centered Support in Primary Care (formerly the Practice Nurse course). You can register for a free account on the Macmillan hub and register interest in the course in advance. More details on this Person-centered primary care flyer – DIGITAL version – A5 copy