Supporting people with active and advanced disease: a rapid review of the evidence

1.1 Background: the NCSI AAD group

The National Cancer Survivorship Initiative (NCSI, 2010) was set up in response to the NHS Cancer Reform Strategy (Department of Health, 2007) as a collaboration between Macmillan Cancer Support, the Department of Health and NHS Improvement, with the goal to achieve a better understanding of the experiences of cancer survivors and to advocate for the provision of services to support them. Within this broad remit, it was recognised that there was a particular group of patients whose needs were commonly neglected; people who were experiencing the ongoing effects of cancer beyond first-line treatment but who were not at end of life. The Active and Advanced Disease (AAD) working group was created to consider issues of relevance to such people.

1.2 Aims of this review

This project set out to meet the following aim:
To review the literature on selected cancers in order to identify implications for the development of services to support patients experiencing difficulties associated with active and advanced disease.