We are responsible for planning cancer services to provide the best outcomes and experience for our population while ensuring our systems achieve financial balance.

Aim: We will ensure equitable access to high quality care for our population, making the best use of our funding to provide sustainable services, fit for the future.

To do this, we will:

• Align the Wessex Cancer Strategy with the NHS Dorset ICB and NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight ICB Forward Plans, Partner Clinical Strategies and Planned Care  Delivery Plans to ensure greatest impact and economic viability.
• Focus commissioning for cancer work on sustainable achievement of the Cancer Waiting Times standards, within a wider scope of whole specialties where this would make sense.
• Commission in line with the ambition set out by the national Elective Reform Plan to make the shift from acute to community, analogue to digital and treatment to prevention.
• Ensure the four key areas that ICBs must achieve are embedded in commissioning plans – improving outcomes, tackling inequalities, improving productivity and value for money, and supporting social and economic development.
• Commission services following Wessex Cancer Alliance pilots where this is a mandatory requirement, for example Lung Cancer Screening.
• Commission innovation that supports achievement of the Cancer Waiting Times standards, prevention and earlier diagnosis of cancer, and/or patient experience and care, based on the resources and opportunity available at the time.
• Collaborate and align with regional networks that are coterminous with the Wessex and/or ICB footprints including Pathology and Imaging, Radiotherapy and  Children’s and Teenagers and Young Adults Operational Delivery Networks (ODNs).
• Align with the Provider Collaboratives, Clinical Advisory Groups and Site Specific Groups across Dorset, Hampshire and Isle of Wight and ensure that  Commissioning plans are informed by and with Clinical Networks.
• Integrate the Community Diagnostic Centre programme into commissioning plans to support the national agenda for increasing access to diagnostics.
• Ensure the world class cancer services we offer for children, teenagers and young adults, aged 25 and under continue to provide the best possible care as locally as possible.
• Support the delegation of cancer screening commissioning to local area, while continuing to focus on increasing access and uptake of cancer screening.
• Commission services as close to patients’ homes as possible, but support centralisation of expertise when quality and sustainability of service requires.
• Ensure services are embracing modern diagnostics and treatments with sufficient capacity to ensure timely access for our whole population.

We will deliver these aims through the roles and responsibilities in commissioning cancer services for our population as set out below:

NHS Dorset ICB and NHS Hampshire and Isle of Wight ICB

• Leadership of strategic design and commissioning of whole system health services.
• Responsible for commissioning services (including diagnostics) that meet the needs of the population within the available resources and in line with clinical and best practice guidelines and waiting /turnaround times standards and offer best value and outcomes.
• Responsible for delivery of National plans such as the Elective Reform Plan, Operational Planning Guidance, GIRFT guidance, CORE20plus5 health inequalities plan, and the soon to be published 10-year health plan.
• Responsible for commissioning of services that enable achievement of the Cancer Waiting Times standards and any other targets such as Earlier Cancer diagnosis.

Wessex Cancer Alliance

• Access to cancer research, clinical expertise and commissioning support to NHS Dorset ICB and Hampshire and Isle of Wight ICB.
• Support design around whole pathways of care to help deliver complex reconfiguration when required.
• Informing ICBs of requirements from the National Cancer Programme, upcoming changes to clinical guidance and best practice.
• Provision of clinical recommendations to ICBs, including support in development of commissioning business cases and support with implementation and evaluation of new services or pathway transformation, ensuring the patient / service user voice is central and empowered to coproduce future services.

Principles of working together

• Collaborative commissioning – cooperation between neighbouring systems for services with a Wessex footprint to enable value for money and best possible, equitable patient experience and outcomes.
• Transparent decision-making – innovations or pilot work will include sustainability plans from the outset and commissioning decisions will be made transparently and in partnership with representatives from the wider community.
• Commissioning will be whole pathway and not separated into stages.
• Coproduced planning – We will support commissioning organisations to ensure the patient voice is central to planning and decision making with respect to cancer services.
• We will identify clinical expertise in rare cancers via Clinical Advisory Groups to ensure commissioning plans include diagnostic and treatment requirements for all cancers, including those not treated in our local area.
• We will join up research and innovation, and partner with industry for pipeline developments in novel diagnostics and treatments, supporting commissioning by forward planning of changes in medicine.
• We will work together with Operational Delivery Networks and Health Innovation Networks, to model demand for future services and ensure equipment is available, appropriately staffed and maintained to provide treatment for our population.
• We will engage in proactive support of planning of Palliative Care treatment capacity, particularly with a focus on palliative radiotherapy equipment replacement and modernisation.
• In partnership with the Genomic Networks, support spread and adoption of genetic testing to become routine in cancer services.