Innovative models of care

Christie at Home 

We are actively pursuing new and innovative models of care that support patients to receive cancer treatment closer to home. In order to reduce the inconvenience and cost of travelling to The Christie Withington site, we have sought to expand our Christie quality services to community and home settings. 

The Christie at Home Service was established in 2015 to enable patients to have their cancer treatment in the comfort of their own home. Our dedicated team of Christie nurses travel across Greater Manchester and Cheshire delivering a high quality patient centered service. 

If you would like to know more about The Christie at Home Service, please contact The Christie at Home Team on 0161 9187671.

Local chemotherapy

We deliver chemotherapy at a number of local outreach sites, both through fixed clinics in local hospitals, health centres and hospices.

The chemotherapy outreach clinics are run by experienced Christie chemotherapy nurses who travel out from the Withington site. The fixed clinics cover Bury, Salford, New Mills, Tameside and Winsford. The mobile unit covers Bolton, Rochdale, Trafford and Chadderton.

There are also five additional Christie treatment clinics run at local trust hospital sites. These clinics run with a visiting Christie consultant and are staffed by local chemotherapy nurses who are trained to Christie standards. They offer high quality care and patient experience in line with The Christie Withington site and are based in Macclesfield, Leighton, Bolton, Stockport and Wigan.

If you would like to know more about the chemotherapy clinics, please contact the Chemotherapy Outreach Team on 0161 9187654.

The Christie at radiotherapy services 

Local delivery of radiotherapy services is a core aim at The Christie. We have established 3 radiotherapy units: The Christie at Salford, The Christie at Oldham and The Christie at Macclesfield. We would like to deliver more radiotherapy locally and are currently considering a range of approaches to expand our network of radiotherapy.

Local delivery of outpatient care

We have already completed a successful pilot of urology outpatient follow up appointments being delivered locally reviewing the holistic needs of our patients to not only monitor their disease, but to provide the information and support to manage the long term side effects and encourage a healthy lifestyle. We are exploring how this model could be extended to other cancer groups and potentially more flexibly through a range of community and home based settings.

Improving access to medicines scheme

We have redesigned the pathway for patients who are on long term treatment who previously were required to visit hospital for quarterly consultant reviews and prescription dispensing. By introducing a pharmacy telephone consultation service, the specialist pharmacy team can assess the wellbeing of the patient on a monthly basis and if everything is well, instruct the issuing of the monthly prescription for collection by the patient locally or through home delivery rather than having to attend for a consultant review appointment. This specific patient focused service also enables those who are having difficulties tolerating treatments to be identified quickly and transferred back for hospital review. This scheme has been recognised and adopted by the national medicines optimisation group within NHS England.

The Christie has long been proud of the quality of care it provides to its patients in its main Withington site and its outreach locations but as the numbers of treatment locations grow we seek to ensure that the same high quality is delivered in all our locations.

In delivering more localised cancer treatment, patients and their families need assurance regarding the standards of cancer care they receive. The Christie, in partnership with other providers, has developed a Christie Quality Mark accreditation scheme. This is awarded to local providers who meet a core set of agreed consistent standards.

We recognise that the holistic treatment of cancer patients should include not only clinical care but also emotional and psychological support as well as advice on broader aspects of living with cancer before, during and after treatment.

Acute Oncology Management Service

The Acute Oncology Management service is a 24-hour telephone helpline service available to Christie registered patients, their carers and professionals for advice and management on the side effects and complications of cancer treatments. 

All patients undergoing active treatment receive The Christie Hotline number on the reverse of all chemotherapy regimen leaflets and alert cards. The importance of using the service is reiterated on each visit. 

All calls are recorded and are triaged using a UK Oncology Nursing Society (UKONS) assessment tool. Consultants, registrars and nurse clinicians are involved in decisions involving patient admission to The Christie or district general hospital. 

Patients will be admitted to The Christie if they meet the formalised admission criteria, or will be referred to their local A&E.

Living with and beyond cancer

All patients and carers affected by cancer will benefit from exploring our resources around Living with and beyond cancer. If you are living with cancer currently, find out how to improve your quality of life, become more physically active and be a more active participant in designing and delivering your care. If your treatment is over, you can hear how other patients improved their health and wellbeing following treatment and download a “Life Ahead Plan”.

We believe that effective partnership working with GPs and other health care colleagues is vitally important if we are to provide flexible, responsive and seamless care to patients.

Working with other health care professionals

We want to support opportunities for strengthening the links with primary and secondary care colleagues, particularly focussed on more rapid identification, diagnosis and prompt referral of patients for cancer care. We are currently exploring how to offer patients more choice in the location of their care and to ensure that they and their GP are kept fully informed and involved throughout their treatment.

We are also working closely with other healthcare and university partners to use the latest information and research available in providing the best care for individual patients and local populations. Many of the factors influencing the rates of cancer can be addressed through multiagency working around public health, screening and earlier detection and The Christie is proud to be a core partner in this work.

TARGET study

TARGET (Tumour chARacterisation to Guide Experimental Targeted Therapy Trial) is a study conducted by the Experimental Cancer Medicine Team. The aim of TARGET is to develop a process to offer personalised medicine to patients with advanced solid cancer, based on the molecular characteristics of their tumour and/or blood borne biomarkers. The research team have established a sample process flow for multi-gene molecular profiling and a Molecular Tumour Board meets monthly to review results and guide selection of therapy. Key metrics for TARGET include: number and range of molecular abnormalities detected in blood/tumour, number of patients successfully recruited to a trial, response rate, survival rates and set-up of pre-clinical models to explore cancer biology. 

The first patient was recruited at The Christie in April 2015, Part A of TARGET successfully completed in 2017 and recruitment to Part B is ongoing with more than 300 patients recruited to TARGET to date. Part B is funded by The Christie charity and receives organisational support from the NIHR Manchester Clinical Research Facility.