Study Notifications

What are the staff meetings for?

 

Every patient diagnosed with cancer in the UK has their care and treatment discussed at meetings involving different medical professionals (known as ‘multidisciplinary team meetings’). The meetings help ensure that every patient has specialist input when recommendations about their treatment are made.

 

 

Researchers from Queen Mary University of London are attending these ‘multidisciplinary team meetings’ to observe how staff interact and contribute to decision-making about treatment for patients with cancer. The researchers hope to understand how the change to virtual ‘zoom’ meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic may have impacted the effectiveness of decision-making in cancer MDT meetings. The findings will be used to create resources that support and improve MDT working.

 

 

No. The researchers are not collecting or recording any information about patients. But they cannot avoid hearing or seeing information about patients being discussed when observing staff’s discussions and decision-making.

 

 

If you are receiving care for cancer at this hospital then it is possible that your identity and information about your care may be seen or heard by these researchers. The researchers will NOT record or use any of your information in any way. They will keep this information entirely confidential. Only a small number (approximately six) meetings are being observed.

 

YOU CAN OPT OUT: Please contact Daisy McInnerney, who is one of the researchers, by email on d.mcinnerney@qmul.ac.uk if you DO NOT want researchers to hear or see information about you during these meetings. Opting out WILL NOT affect any of your future care.