In this interview, we meet Rod Skinner from the University of Newcastle in Newcastle, UK.
Please introduce yourself and share with us why you joined PanCareFollowUp.
My name is Rod Skinner. I am a Consultant in Pediatric and Adolescent Haemato-Oncology, working at the Great North Children’s Hospital in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. I am also an Honorary Professor of Childhood Cancer at Newcastle University.
My clinical work in Newcastle now focuses exclusively on long-term follow-up and I lead our clinical service, so I am very excited to be part of this project which will hopefully lead to major advances in the delivery of long-term follow-up of childhood cancer survivors.
Explain your organisation and your role in PanCareFollowUp.
The Department of Pediatric and Adolescent Hematology / Oncology at the Great North Children’s Hospital is one of the larger pediatric oncology centers in the UK and treats about 100-120 new patients every year. We have a very active long-term follow-up service.
I have a longstanding interest in developing guidelines for long-term follow-up of childhood cancer survivors, and led the guidelines work package in the EU-funded PanCareSurFup project. So my biggest role in PanCareFollowUp is to help with the guideline development work, but I am also involved in several related components within PanCareFollowUp.
Why do you think PanCareFollowUp is an important project?
The project is hugely important because it seeks to demonstrate the benefits of a person-centered approach to the delivery of long-term follow-up care for childhood cancer survivors. This can provide the evidence needed to greatly improve survivor care across Europe.
In addition, the Lifestyle Intervention that will be developed and studied offers a potential means to help survivors adopt healthier lifestyles that will benefit their long-term health.
What makes this project unique for you?
Teamwork – so many different people working together from many centers in several countries, from many different healthcare and academic disciplines, to achieve the project’s aims.
What do you hope this project will achieve?
Improved, more consistent and patient-centered care for long-term survivors.
Demonstration of health benefits for survivors hopefully alongside evaluation of health economic benefits of the patient-centered care approach.
What’s the biggest challenge of your organisation in PanCareFollowUp?
Sadly, coming from the UK, I have to say discovering how we can continue to collaborate strongly with our European friends and partners in the post-Brexit era.
What’s the most fun thing for you in PanCareFollowUp?
Meeting friends and colleagues at our regular meetings – this provides the catalyst for our shared passion and hard work to improve care of childhood cancer survivors. This is harder (but not impossible) during the pandemic and I think we are all looking forward to being able to meet in person again.
What’s the most important benefit of your participation in PanCareFollowUp?
The opportunity to continue my passion to develop guidelines that will improve long-term follow-up and care of childhood cancer survivors.
The project is also allowing us to develop understandable “plain language” information brochures for survivors about surveillance for late effects of treatment – this is very challenging but great fun especially with all the teamwork involved.
What else do we need to know about your organisation or is there anything else you want to share?
Despite Brexit, everyone at Newcastle University remains very committed to collaborative European projects – hopefully, we can continue to contribute strongly to the work of PanCare and its projects.