Town GP wins national award for ‘Cancer Maps’
A LOUGHBOROUGH GP has won a national award from the Royal College of GPs for his ‘ground-breaking’ work in speeding up cancer diagnoses.
Dr Ben Noble, a GP at the Woodbrook practice in Loughborough and one of Cancer Research UK’s 16 GP Leads across the country, has been awarded the RCGP’s Bright Ideas award for his innovative ‘Cancer Maps’ – an online tool developed in collaboration with his dad, Patrick Noble.
The RCGP’s Bright Ideas Awards were established to inspire, celebrate and recognise fresh thinking and ground-breaking ideas in primary care.
Dr Noble was one of six winners across the UK whose work impressed the Royal College of GPs. There are two categories of award: Pioneer Awards recognise ideas that push the boundaries of general practice; and High Impact Awards celebrate those who have taken a fresh approach to addressing the challenges currently facing primary care.
Dr Noble won the Pioneer Award category for his brainchild, the ‘Cancer Maps’, an interactive online tool based on NICE Guidelines, designed to be used during consultations to help clinicians recognise cancer symptoms. The maps were piloted with GP surgeries across Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire.
Calling on his recently retired dad for computer expertise, Dr Noble created the maps after realising that his life-long habit of ‘mind-mapping’ to make sense of complex information could be of direct use to doctors in the surgery.
Designed to be used during consultations in cases of suspected cancer, the Cancer Maps allow doctors to input patient data and symptoms, causing different areas of the map to light up, highlighting potential routes for action in line with NICE Guidelines. Results can be clearly seen by both doctor and patient alike, reassuring patients that the right steps are being taken.
After a successful pilot test with Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire GPs, the Cancer Maps were endorsed by the RCGP and made available to doctors nationwide through Gateway C, an online cancer training platform for primary care.
Dr Noble said: I’m delighted to have won this award, it really does affirm my confidence that the Cancer Maps have an important part to play in early cancer diagnosis. That the judges recognised this innovation is a source of great pride to me.
“The Bright Ideas awards are really well respected and I hope that winning one will open doors to further progress my innovation. I hope to build on the success of the Cancer Maps by polishing them further to improve their visual appeal.”
Dr Noble is currently working on developing a patient version of the Cancer Maps.
Jodie Moffat, Cancer Research UK’s Head of Early Diagnosis, said: “We’re delighted Dr Noble’s Cancer Maps have received this national recognition. The Cancer Maps are proving to be very popular with doctors of all levels of experience. In helping GPs to quickly appraise the best course of action for their patients, it’s another item in the toolkit for supporting earlier diagnosis of cancer.”
Professor Mayur Lakhani, Chair of West Leicestershire Clinical Commissioning Group and President of the RGCP said: “This award is highly deserved and recognises a truly cutting-edge innovation which has pushed back the boundaries of general practice.
“Cancer diagnosis and referral is highly complex, but with the Cancer ‘mindmap’ tool Ben and his father are helping thousands of GP colleagues to understand and apply NICE guidance on recognising and referring cases of suspected cancer. GPs are using the tool and finding it incredibly useful, but perhaps more importantly it has been well received by patients, many of whom are beginning treatment much sooner thanks to an earlier diagnosis made possible by Ben’s incredible innovation”.
“On behalf of GPs everywhere, I want to personally thank Ben for his pioneering work on cancer diagnosis and congratulate him on winning the Bright Ideas 2019 award”.
Dr Noble’s Cancer Maps are available here: https:// www. gatewayc. org. uk/ cancer-maps/