Co-designing an innovative centre for lung cancer in Greater ManchesterPathway and facility design to facilitate a future-ready Diagnostic and Treatment Centre

The Lung Cancer Diagnostic and Treatment Centre needed to absorb tertiary referrals from screening programmes, while providing high-quality, equitable care for patients. Alongside this, the facility needed to be cost-efficient, futureproof and improve waiting times. 

With a shared ambition to improve outcomes and future-proof lung cancer care, Siemens Healthineers Consulting worked with clinicians, leaders and partners to set goals to ensure strategic alignment. Through patient and staff engagement, pathway redesign and advanced simulation modelling, the consulting team translated these goals and ambitions into optimised patient flows and fit-for-purpose facilities, to enable faster diagnosis, improved access and more sustainable service delivery.

Using an experience-based design process, the consulting team ran a total of 80 interactive workshops with over 200 stakeholders. From these sessions, the consulting team were able to reflect challenges and opportunities in the existing pathways and facility, into a new design that meets the needs of patients and staff.

To support the requirements of MFT’s Thoracic Oncology Research Hub as a Centre of Excellence, the consulting team integrated research capability throughout the facility, including a training centre for staff. Alongside this work, simulation modelling was used to stress-test patient pathways, maximise cost-efficiencies and create an optimal staffing plan that can adapt to forecasted increases in demand over time. To provide an additional perspective on what the facility would look like once built, a 3D fly-through of the facility was generated and shared with stakeholders.

The potential benefits of the consulting team’s design of the facilities and pathways include improved operational performance for patient wait times, throughput, as well as boosted staff morale and patient wellbeing.

Once the centre is live, key potential outcomes* include:

• Improvement in mortality and survivorship representing up to 296 lives saved p/a
• Financial benefit of over £4m
• Substantial elimination of diagnostic and treatment backlogs
• Creation of a cutting-edge model that could be developed for other cancers and diseases

Professor Richard Booton, Clinical Director for Lung Cancer and Thoracic Surgery at Wythenshawe Hospital, says: “The 'centre' concept, driven by staff and patients, and facilitated by the superb team at Siemens Healthineers, is key to seeing the required impact on patient experience and aftercare.”