The edinburgh Malawi cancer partnership: Helping to establish multidisciplinary cancer care in Blantyre, Malawi

In response to the growing incidence of cancer in Malawi, a newoncology unit was established at the Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, Blantyre.The unit opened in 2010, the first in the country, and is led by a single consultantoncologist. In 2012, a healthcare partnership was formed between the oncologyand palliative care unit at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital and the EdinburghCancer Centre, UK. The principal objective of the partnership is to help develophigh quality multidisciplinary cancer care in Malawi.Methods A needs assessment identified three priority areas for furtherimprovement of cancer services: nurse-led treatment delivery; management ofclinical data; and multidisciplinary working. The partnership received grant fundingfrom the Scottish Government Malawi Development Programme in 2013 and athree year project plan was implemented. This has been conducted through aseries of reciprocal training visits.Results Key achievements have been completion of a programme of oncologynursing education attended by 32 oncology nurses and other healthcareprofessionals, which has resulted in increased experience in cancer practice andstandardisation of chemotherapy delivery procedures; development of a clinicaldatabase that enables prospective collection of data of all new patients withcancer and which links to the Malawi Cancer Registry; development of weeklymultidisciplinary meetings involving oncology, gynaecology and surgery that hasenabled a cross-specialty approach to patient care.Conclusion The Edinburgh Malawi Cancer Partnership is supporting nursingeducation, data use and cross-specialty collaboration that we are confident willimprove cancer care in Malawi. Future work will focus on the further developmentof multidisciplinary breast cancer care and the development of a radiotherapyservice for patients in Malawi.