Minister for Health Leo Varadkar has launched two new National Clinical Effectiveness Guidelines to help medical practitioners with diagnosing, monitoring and treating breast cancer and prostate cancer.
The new guidelines were drafted by the National Cancer Control Programme (NCCP) and quality assured by the Department's National Clinical Effectiveness Committee (NCEC).
This week Minister Varadkar gave them Ministerial endorsement as high quality guidelines to be implemented in full across the health service. They are the first NCEC clinical guidelines for cancer and will help to improve the quality, safety and cost-effectiveness of cancer care across Ireland.
The guidelines are designed to further raise the quality of clinical care and prevent variations in practice. They are based on the best research evidence and on clinical expertise. Dr Jerome Coffey, Interim Director of the NCCP acknowledged the commitment and expertise of the multi-disciplinary cancer teams in developing the guidelines.