Cancer care celebrated at awards

A team from St George's Hospital, London won Cancer Team of the Year

Teams and individuals working in cancer care in the UK were last night recognised at the third Quality in Care (QiC) Oncology awards.

The awards took place at Central Hall, Westminster, following the Britain Against Cancer Conference and recognised leading practice in oncology management, education and patient care from across the country.

Winners included a team at St George's Hospital, London, which picked up the Cancer Team of the Year award for its work to transform penile cancer management with centralisation and multidisciplinary care.

Judges commented: "This was an inspirational 10-year initiative that was way ahead of the field. It is a difficult area that's not talked about, but this is clearly an outstanding service – perhaps even internationally - that has the potential to transform the patient group it serves."

Elsewhere the Charity Initiative of the Year went to a pioneering campaign by Cancer Research UK to improve patient access to radiotherapy in the NHS.

Judges said: "Before Cancer Research UK's initiative few people were talking about radiotherapy, and very few Trusts actually focused on it. The charity galvanised the Department of Health to act and got it put into policy. The impact of the initiative was huge."

Dr Mick Peake won the Judges' Special Award

The QiC Oncology judges also announced a special award to Dr Mick Peake, clinical lead for the National Cancer Intelligence Network (NCIN), for a career dedicated to helping to improve outcomes for people with cancer.

"Mick's achievements with the NCIN has had a huge impact on the area of lung cancer,” said the judges. “He has completely transformed the landscape and got us to think about what we do and he's still so passionate about what he does and believes in quality of care."

QiC Oncology is partnered by major partners Bristol-Myers Squibb, Lilly and Novartis and partner NHS Improving Quality. Its supporters include the cancer organisations Beating Bowel Cancer, Breast Cancer Care, Cancer52, Macmillan Cancer Support, Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation and UKONS (UK Oncology Nursing Society).

Quality in Care is a series of programmes aimed at recognising quality and productivity in key therapy areas. Other QiC programmes include QiC Diabetes, QiC Anticoagulation and QiC Hepatitis C.

• See the full results of QiC Oncology 2014