RTQ SIG is a young national network established in mid-2015 building on the foundations of multiple regional quality networks – London and South East Radiotherapy Quality Managers Group (LASER), Midlands Organisation of Specialists in Quality Improvement for Therapeutic Oncology (MOSQuITO) and South-West Quality Assurance Radiotherapy Group (SW QART).  The purpose of a national network is to support learning and development of quality professionals in radiotherapy for the benefit of oncology patients undergoing radiotherapy.

Our vision is to empower our quality professionals to drive QI culture in our community, encourage sharing and learning from excellence from within our own profession and a wider healthcare community. Many cancer patients have multiple health conditions and we hope to build relationships with other professionals / sectors to develop better understanding of roles between different sectors in order to facilitate person-centred care.

RTQ SIG takes ownership and spearhead quality development of our own community, imbue a balanced quality management and quality improvement approach in student and staff education program. Members work together to drive QI for the benefit of patient safety and working environment for staff delivering the service, promote patient involvement in our process to enhance patient experience. 

The national group aims to develop QI ethos and provides QI leaderships by engaging and empowering quality professionals in our community. RTQ SIG currently has 120+ members from 93 radiotherapy sites across UK and Ireland. Membership is growing steadily. Regional quality group meets on a quarterly basis and national group meets annually with a steering group meeting in between annual meetings. All information is shared via group mailing list and group webpage on NHSnetworks.

Our members work together to advance network goals; creating, sharing and exchanging knowledge and/or insights together; building support for stakeholders. The group has a steering group to drive ongoing projects including electronic radiotherapy specific patient reported experience measures (RT PREM) owned by the profession and quality education pack design specifically for staff and students of multidisciplinary background working in radiotherapy. 

We would love to collaborate with other groups in the Q community and take advantages of the huge pool of expertise in improvement science, ergonomics human factor, behavioural science, patient safety, person-centred care, modern development of healthcare leadership to drive quality improvement for the benefit of oncology patients.

The group provides networking opportunity for quality professionals in radiotherapy to exchange and discuss contemporary issues specific to radiotherapy and oncology patients.  We support quality education beyond quality management system and working to widen engagement with colleagues who are not in formal quality roles.

Part of the funding will be used to support the development of profession-owned electronic national Patient Report Experience Measures (ePREM), utilise information technology to collect meaningful data, provide live results to drive patient centred improvement at large scale with sustainable operating cost.

Our quality education project group is supported by quality professionals and educators in radiotherapy and aims to develop a national quality education pack.  Students radiographers, trainee physicists, radiotherapy specialist registrars (SpRs), newly qualified staff and other personnel working in radiotherapy environment have varied knowledge in quality (sub topics such as quality management, clinical governance, patient safety, quality improvement etc.) and will benefit from a shared education packs with core contents commonly used and adaptable to meet the needs of individual departments.

Group website:

https://www.networks.nhs.uk/nhs-networks/london-and-south-east-radiotherapy-quality

Current membership map:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=1Ad8YqEnEMaLg2DMiZBj67z5_rCYaiiNL&ll=53.51491498093862%2C-3.922759000000042&z=5