Novartis - October 2024 - case study 2

Start date:

Black Country ICB Cancer Health Inequalities in Wolverhampton Project

NHS Organisation(s) Black Country ICB
Project focus Service redesign, Workforce
Project Type Joint Working
Company Novartis

Project Name: Black Country ICB Cancer Health Inequalities in Wolverhampton Project

Project Summary:

This Collaborative Working Project is designed to improve the quality and equity of care delivered to Cancer screening service users and to develop local protocols in line with:

  • General Medical Council
  • National Care for Health and Care Excellence (“NICE”) advanced breast cancer clinical guidelines
  • Core20PLUS5 approach 
  • Black Country ICB Health Inequalities Strategy 
     

Summary of key objectives:

  • Awareness and education; to improve understanding of vague cancer symptoms. 
  • Increase screening uptake; to educate on the screening process.
  • Access to healthcare enablement; to understand and address barriers faced when liaising with the Healthcare System
  • Address healthcare inequalities by targeting underserved communities.
  • Enable the ICB commissioning and financial planning cycle to prioritise health equity in future decision-making processes based on the actionable insights and impact of this project.
  • Create and capture opportunities to address other health issues for service users accessing the screening programme aligned to Making every contact count (“MECC”); these opportunities will be documented to inform future service planning.

The project will recruit an Integrated Care Board (“ICB”) hosted Engagement Officer (Band 6) who will identify and manage four volunteer Cancer Champions who will be based within four identified health inequality communities for 12 months to identify barriers, increase early engagement, raise awareness, and collate data both qualitative and quantitative to measure success.  The Engagement Officer will target specific surgeries to interrogate screening lists and identify Service Users eligible for screening who have not attended a screening appointment.

Planned Milestones:

MilestoneDescription
1Project Kick off meeting
2Collection of aggregated baseline data, confirmation of recruitment readiness, 
development of protocols and completion of HEAT documentation.
3Confirmation of recruitment, completion of shared work plan and Performance 
Monitoring Framework documentation.
4Confirmation of 3 months completed activities in line with developed protocols 
& completion of HEAT documentation.
5Confirmation of 6 months completed activities in line with developed protocols, 
completion of 1st Service User Case Study and completion of HEAT documentation.
6Confirmation of 9 months completed activities in line with developed protocols, 
completion of 2nd Service User Case Study and completion of HEAT documentation. 
Delivery of Mentorship programme materials and delivery to identified ICB.
7Delivery of Mentoring / Best Practice Sharing to a minimum of 2 ICBS
8Confirmation of 9 months completed activities in line with developed protocols, 
completion of 3rd Service User Case Study and completion of HEAT documentation.
9Submission of final report, business case development and outcomes summary


Expected Benefits:

Anticipated benefits for patients:

  • Access to screening services will enable earlier detection and intervention/treatments to occur with better outcomes in the longer term.
  • Increased trust in the Health System.
  • More equitable access to care.
  • Tailored Health Information to improve health literacy.
     

Anticipated benefits for the collaborative working partner:

  • Improved screening rates for breast cancer vs national performance measures.
  • Working towards key priorities and objectives in the ICB Health Inequalities Strategy. 
  • Potential earlier diagnosis of breast cancer so less system burden from more complex case management.
  • Deeper understanding of the impact of health inequalities to help inform future decision making/commissioning cycle/financial allocations.
  • NHS resources deployed with maximum efficiency.
     

Anticipated benefits for Novartis:

  • Better understanding of overall HCP and patient needs.
  • Optimal use of medicines in line with local/national guidance (including Novartis medicines) in appropriate patients.
  • Ethical, professional, and transparent relationship between Novartis and the Healthcare Organisations.
  • In line with the Novartis Health Inequalities Pledge.
     

Start Date & Duration: October 2024 – 15 months

FA-11295707

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Last modified: 06 June 2025

Last reviewed: 06 June 2025