Professor Risteárd Ó Laoide:

There is a psycho-oncology and survivorship group within the NCCP, which helps on a number of these issues. We developed a psycho-oncology model of care in 2020 and that is being rolled out so that there are psycho-oncology units in all the cancer centres. We also implemented a national cancer survivor needs assessment, which was published in 2019. There are various programmes, such as Together 4 Cancer Concern, which is a helpline that helps people with anxiety on cancer, and also the Survive and Thrive programme, which we run. Some 400 patients have participated in that and it is now being done remotely because of the pandemic. In 2020, we filled six new posts in oncology and 19 new posts in 2021.

Eight physiotherapists, three dieticians, three speech and language workers and seven clinical nurse specialists were allocated to survivorship in 2021. We are also working with the voluntary sector in this area in trying to ensure that there is equality of care within that sector in respect of providing help to people in the survivorship space. Perhaps Professor Hill or Professor Flanagan might wish to comment on the specifics for patients in this regard.