Care for people suffering from cancer in the Isle of Man is getting better, medical professionals have heard.

An event entitled ’Cancer across Primary and Secondary Care: Improving the Patient Journey’ was attended by both medical staff and health service managers.

Primary care is often the first point of contact for people in need of healthcare, acting as a ’front door’ to health services, and is provided by professionals such as general practitioners (GPs), dentists and pharmacists.

Secondary care refers to specialist healthcare professionals, such as a consultant, whom people would encounter after being referred by a GP. These services are typically based in a hospital and include elective surgery and emergency care.

A presentation by Dr Debbie Harvey, Macmillan GP and primary care lead for Cheshire and Merseyside, referred to a study conducted with GPs in the island, who had been asked about their experiences - both good and bad - of cancer services available to patients.

The exercise, explained Dr Harvey, was positive and it resulted in a review of referral forms for patients with suspected cancer.

Those forms now comply with current NHS England (NHSE) standards.

Mike Quinn, director of hospital services at Noble’s Hospital, spoke about cuts in waiting times.

At the end of June 2016, 38 per cent of patients were seen within two weeks but this figure had increased to 89.8 per cent by the end of Quarter 1 2017-2018 on June 30 2017.

Factors that had led to this improvement, said Mr Quinn, included the introduction of weekly cancer patient tracking list meetings in July 2016 and allowing cancer care co-ordinators to ’engage’ with senior staff to resolve issues and develop the service.

The director of public health, Dr Henrietta Ewart, said that the ’Manx Public Health Outcomes Framework (PHOF)’ now has an established list of indicators, which are due to be published this summer.

She added that PHOF follows the same methodology as Public Health England (PHE) to ensure accurate benchmarking.