Participants’ opinions about the usefulness, approaches used and governance of streamlining
| Disagree or strongly disagree | Neither agree or disagree | Agree or strongly agree | Missing | Kruskal-Wallis statistic | |||
| n (%) | n (%) | n (%) | n | Tumour type | Occupation group | MDT type | |
| Usefulness of streamlining | |||||||
| This approach of streamlining patient discussions could allow more straightforward cases to be progressed more quickly, rather than waiting for the weekly meeting | 190 (15.8) | 179 (14.9) | 831 (69.3) | 20 | 67.3 (<0.001) | 37.4 (<0.001) | 6.3 (0.042) |
| The MDT I selected above would benefit from some form of streamlining | 313 (25.8) | 183 (15.1) | 718 (58.9) | 6 | 48.2 (<0.001) | 43.5 (<0.001) | 4.8 (0.091) |
| Approaches for streamlining | |||||||
| For the MDT selected above, some patients should be discussed by a smaller team, rather than requiring discussion by the full MDT | 422 (34.7) | 119 (9.8) | 675 (55.5) | 4 | 82.1 (<0.001) | 57.0 (<0.001) | 2.9 (0.253) |
| For the MDT selected above, some patients should be placed on protocolised treatment pathways and are not needed to be discussed at the meeting at all | 498 (41.2) | 168 (13.9) | 542 (44.9) | 12 | 115.6 (<0.001) | 42.1 (<0.001) | 5.1 (0.078) |
| The streamlining of patient discussions should be performed in advance of the main MDT meeting to decide which patients should be discussed at the meeting, and which should receive a protocolised treatment plan | 271 (22.6) | 173 (14.5) | 753 (62.9) | 23 | 68.8 (<0.001) | 49.5 (<0.001) | 1.5 (0.482) |
| The clinician referring the patient to the MDT should be able to bypass the pre-MDT and refer straight to the full MDT | 175 (17.0) | 117 (11.4) | 737 (71.6) | 191 | 38.4 (<0.001) | 23.5 (<0.001) | 4.3 (0.118) |
| The clinician should be able to make treatment recommendations directly for newly diagnosed patients, without referring to either the full MDT or pre-MDT | 547 (53.2) | 163 (15.9) | 318 (30.9) | 192 | 74.1 (<0.001) | 36.3 (<0.001) | 0.7 (0.714) |
| Governance | |||||||
| If patients followed treatment protocols or had recommendations made by a smaller team, the full MDT reviewing a selection of these patients would provide sufficient governance of this process | 255 (21.3) | 244 (20.4) | 700 (58.4) | 21 | 71.1 (<0.001) | 37.1 (<0.001) | 5.8 (0.056) |
| Patient cases that are placed on a protocolised pathway should be made available to audit by the MDT | 24 (2.3) | 79 (7.7) | 924 (90.0) | 193 | 18.7 (0.096) | 78.3 (<0.001) | 7.3 (0.026) |
| The treatment protocols followed by the pre-MDT should be designed by a national body | 246 (24.1) | 379 (37.2) | 395 (38.7) | 200 | 4.9 (0.963) | 26.4 (0.002) | 9.3 (0.009) |
| The treatment protocols followed by the pre-MDT should be designed at a local level, based on recommendations made at a national level | 174 (17.0) | 293 (28.6) | 557 (54.4) | 196 | 25.9 (0.011) | 15.6 (0.075) | 0.2 (0.905) |
| The treatment protocols followed by the pre-MDT should be designed at a network level, based on recommendations made at a national level | 124 (12.1) | 291 (28.4) | 610 (59.5) | 195 | 14.1 (0.295) | 19.8 (0.019) | 3.9 (0.144) |
MDT, multidisciplinary team.