Consumer Perspective: Prostate Cancer
Paul Wagner was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2017 at the age of 55 after obtaining a second opinion.
The Prostate Cancer 2020 Summit was held online on Friday 4 December and Friday 11 December. Co-chaired by Professors Jeremy Millar and Damien Bolton, it included a policy context presentation and two consumer videos. The Victorian Tumour Summits Steering Committee Chair A/Prof Paul Mitchell spoke on the first prostate summit, held in 2016.
Since this time, clinicians, Integrated Cancer Services and Primary Health Networks – along with NGOs – have worked to reduce unwarranted variations in prostate cancer care. The 2020 Summit, with 84 active participants, shared outcomes from 2016, reviewed recent data and identified variations. The inclusion of consumers provided insight into patient and carer experience of Victorian prostate cancer care.
Prostate Cancer 2020 Clinical Working Party
Prof Jeremy Millar (Co-chair)
Prof Damien Bolton (Co-chair)
A/Prof Paul Mitchell
A/Prof Declan Murphy
A/Prof Justin Tse
Prof Ian Davis
A/Prof Sue Evans
Dr Keen-Hun Tai
Dr David Pook
Mr Mark Frydenberg
Mr Paul Kearns
Mr Rohan Hall
Mr Nathan Lawrentschuk
Dr Mahesh Iddawela
Mr Lachlan Dodds
Ms Melissa Arduca,
Acting Assistant Director of Cancer Strategy & Development, Department of Health & Human Services
Ms Kathryn Whitfield, Director of Cancer and Aged Care - Commissioning, DHHS, drew attention to the updated Victorian cancer plan 2020–2024. New to the plan are short- and medium-term goals and the embedding of optimal care pathways (OCPs).
Summits contribute to the plan's reform agenda by benchmarking statewide cancer care against the OCPs. Summits aim to generate improvement activities that make a meaningful difference to care and can be measured and monitored.
Summit working party co-chairs, Professors Jeremy Millar and Damien Bolton, presented data during the first session. Professor Millar presented for the second session.
For discussion from session one were:
Consumers experienced variation in information and support at diagnosis and during treatment planning
Variation in access to multidisciplinary meeting discussion
Variation in access to prostatectomy by SEIFA status and geography
Variation in surgical volumes
Variation in access to RT (brachytherapy) balance of surgery and radiotherapy