Cancer Institute NSW Clinical Infrastructure Program

Program 3.1 of the NSW Cancer Plan 2007-10 aims for the coordination of all persons involved in specialised cancer services, to provide optimal cancer results. One initiative of this program was the Cancer Services Infrastructure Support Program (the Program), which aimed to provide the basic structure to allow the further development of integrated cancer services. A focus of the Program has been the development and financial support of positions across Area Health Services (AHSs) which included:

a Director/Manager of Area Cancer Services (DACS/MACS)	Lead Clinicians
a Cancer Services Development Manager (CSDM);	Psycho-oncology staff; and
Cancer Nurse Coordinators (CNCs)	Cancer Genetics staff.

The positions were developed in the context of each AHS to ensure that local priorities were addressed. Each role had a unique purpose and a defined set of responsibilities that were linked directly to facilitating the development of integrated cancer services within AHSs.

Each position was to make improvements in at least three of the following key areas:

clinical leadership	multidisciplinary care; and/or
coordination of care	patient-centred care.

Position Funding

The Cancer Institute NSW has provided approximately $10 million annually to this Program, with the total expenditure from financial years 2004/05 to 2008/09 being just under $40 million. The program currently funds 131 full-time equivalent positions in Area Health Service Cancer Services.

Figure 1: Total allocated Program funding by position from 2004/05 to 2008/09.

Program Funding by position 2004/5 to 2008/9

The Cancer Institute NSW is currently developing a set of appropriate indicators for the purpose of monitoring cancer service performance, and measuring clinical outcomes resulting from clinical infrastructure funding.

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