Cancer Service
Overview
CUH/UCC Cancer Centre is the designated Cancer Centre for the South/South West of Ireland, serving a supra-regional population of over 1 million people. It has a large and thriving range of services, and uniquely in Ireland supports the care of both adults and all cancer types. It has the latest in diagnostic imaging, including PSMA PET CT, a state-of-the-art radiotherapy unit, and one of the busiest histopathology laboratories in the state.
The Cancer Centre at CUH works with valued colleagues across the HSE in the community and other hospitals and serves a wider population of approximately 1.1 million in our region alone. In fact, for certain conditions such as brain tumours, we serve up to 1/3rd of Ireland’s population across the West, Midlands and South of Ireland. CUH also houses an Oncology Clinical Trials Unit (Cancer Trials Cork) and the Health Research Board (HRB) funded Clinical Research Facility-UCC, and it is an established provider of academic teaching and education.
Organisation of European Cancer Institutes (OECI)
Background and Vision of the Accreditation and Designation Programme
The OECI is the largest network of cancer centres across Europe, currently comprising of 123 members. Their accreditation programme helps European cancer centres implement a quality system for cancer care using standards and peer review system. A key goal is to foster and accelerate improvements in translational and clinical cancer research. It has been designed and developed by a wide range of experts from oncology societies and patient organisations throughout Europe. Peer review is performed by experts from OECI cancer centres/institutes and site visits are chaired by a Director of an OECI cancer centre/institute.
What is an accreditation programme?
Accreditation is a process in which an independent organisation evaluates an institution and certifies that it meets certain quality standards. OECI has specialised its A&D Programme in multidisciplinary integrated cancer care and research, with a major focus on comprehensiveness. It is the only cancer accreditation in the world which evaluates both clinical services and research. It is also the only cancer Programme whose standards have been accredited by the International Society for Quality in Healthcare (ISQua). The domains of the A&D Programme include governance, organisational quality, patient involvement and empowerment, multidisciplinarity, prevention and early detection, all modalities of diagnosis, treatment and care, translational and clinical research, education and training
Why apply for accreditation?
Our future vision is to bring the CUH/UCC Cancer Centre to the level of an internationally recognised Cancer Institute and accreditation is an initial step to achieving this goal. CUH in collaboration with University College Cork became members of OECI in 2022 and our application for accreditation was accepted in May 2023.
Dr Claire O Regan is the OECI Project Manager coregan@UCC.ie and is working with all relevant departments across the hospital and university to facilitate the process.
Further information on OECI accreditation can be found by clicking on
https://www.yout-ube.com/watch?v=gy2XAbzW100