Burnout 3: Does involvement with Department of Health initiatives designed to improve patient care also improve the quality of the workings lives of doctors?
Gary Collins with Amanda Ramirez, Jill Graham, Cath Taylor, Michael Richards, Lesley Fallowfield, Michael West, Claire Henry, and Katie Burall (London)
The aim of this project is to investigate the impact on the quality of cancer clinicians' working lives of participation in initiatives introduced to improve cancer patients' care: the Cancer Services Collaborative Programme, a proposed National Communication Skills Training Programme, and the National Colorectal Team Training Programme.
This is prospective cohort study of the quality of cancer clinicians' working lives, with assessments at three time points; baseline, half way through the programme (18 months) and after the programme has finished (3 years).
Becoming involved in the Cancer Services Collaborative Programme is a process and as such does not have a discrete 'start point'. Therefore, a cohort study is necessary for three reasons:
1. In order to collect baseline data from clinicians before they become involved
2. In order to be have a comparison group of cancer clinicians who are not involved in the Cancer Services Collaborative Programme
3. In order to enable comparison of differing degrees, and timing, of clinicians' involvement in the Cancer Services Collaborative Programme. (A measure will be developed of the extent and timing of clinicians' involvement.)
The working model is shown below
The primary hypothesis is that greater involvement in the Cancer Services Collaborative Programme Phase III will be associated with higher levels of job satisfaction.
Funding has been agreed for this project and the final design is under way.
