A national cancer prehabilitation programme being rolled out by the Scottish government in collaboration with Macmillan Cancer Support and the Centre for Sustainable Delivery, is to use digital resources as part of support offered to patients before and during their cancer treatment.
The new cancer prehabilitation screening pathway is “designed to fit around people’s lives”, the Centre for Sustainable Delivery states, delivering support at home or in the community, as well as digitally with online resources and remote support. This approach is designed to minimise unnecessary hospital visits and allow people to benefit from support provided in “familiar and convenient” settings, it adds.
Under the new approach, everyone diagnosed with cancer will be screened to understand what support they require, bringing together community services, third sector organisations, and NHS care to help connect people with the right support at the right time.
A personalised plan will be developed on a person-by-person basis, according to the Centre for Sustainable Delivery, with the aim of empowering them to take an active role in their own health, feeling “more confident, informed and in control as they move into treatment”.
Katie Lyon, CfSD’s Macmillan national improvement advisor for cancer prehabilitation, pointed to the improved outcomes and experiences offered by enabling patients to avoid hospital stays and unnecessary appointments, stating: “By helping people improve their health before treatment starts – whether at home, in the community or through digital support – we can improve recovery, reduce complications and support people to live as well as possible during and after cancer treatment.”
The centre suggests potential benefits for patients could include shorter hospital stays, faster recovery from surgery or treatment, better strength and nutrition, and overall better quality of life and wellbeing.
Wider trend: Digital transformation in cancer services
The UK Government has published its National Cancer Plan for England, backed by billions of pounds worth of investments in areas such as digital diagnostics. In line with the “five big bets” set out by the 10-Year Plan, the government draws up plans to increase the use of robotic surgery, publish a new specification for a national registry for robotically assisted surgery by March 2026, and develop new national training standards to support cancer surgeons in becoming “regular and expert users of surgical robots”. By 2035, half a million procedures will use robotic surgery, it suggests. AI tools such as Ambient Voice will help reduce staff time lost to admin tasks, and AI will assist oncologists in planning radiotherapy “more quickly and accurately”, with recommendations from a GIRFT study into maximising productivity in radiotherapy services to be implemented as soon as it is published.
Liverpool-based Spotlight Pathology has secured £1.4 million in seed funding to support the development of its AI-powered blood cancer diagnostics software. The funding round was co-led by the UK Innovation and Science Seed Fund (UKI2S) and Liverpool City Region Seed Fund. Funding will be used toward product development, regulation, and clinical adoption for the company’s AI software capable of analysing digital pathology images to support the earlier identification of blood cancers.
A research collaboration with NIHR, The Royal Devon University Hospital Trust and The University of Exeter, has identified a novel way of interpreting standard blood tests with the potential to help identify cancer earlier. The HelpFlag study applies an algorithm to blood analysis, supporting doctors in detecting differences in blood platelet levels, flagging concerns for GPs along with advice on next steps such as further testing.
