The B-POISED study

NHS England recommends cancer services set up ‘Personalised Stratified Follow Up’ (PSFU) starting with breast, prostate and colorectal cancers. This means patients who feel well do not attend hospital for routine ‘check-ups’ following treatment. Instead, they should contact their specialist team when they need to see them. Research has found that PSFU is a safe and effective way of monitoring people after treatment. However, it requires patients to monitor their health and report symptoms. PSFU safety and effectiveness may differ for certain people such as those on low incomes, living in remote areas or from minority ethnic backgrounds, sometimes called ‘under-served groups’.

The aim of this study is to find out if PSFU meets the needs of people from under-served groups following treatment for breast cancer, and to make recommendations to improve PSFU experience.

This project involves 3 phases or ‘workstreams’:

1. Workstream 1 (WS1) will find out what is already known about PSFU in breast cancer.
2. In workstream 2 (WS2), we will interview NHS staff involved in implementing and delivering PSFU at cancer alliances across England, as well as professionals who support people with breast cancer through charities, to explore their experiences of PSFU. Cancer alliances will be selected to ensure we include people from various under-served groups.
3. Workstream 3 (WS3) will involve interviewing people who have completed treatment for breast cancer and have entered a PSFU pathway. We will include people from under-served groups to reflect each local area. Following this data analysis, we will invite some interviewees to attend a discussion group (or focus group). In the focus groups we will discuss our findings and their potential to inform recommendations for improvements to PSFU. 

Sharing our findings

We will prioritise sharing our final report with study participants and participating NHS organisations, through reports, posters and online workshops, and will use these forums to seek feedback on our findings and proposed recommendations.