Ministry of Health drives safety in radiotherapy with the European CAT-ClinART project

The Ministry of Health is actively engaged in the CAT-ClinART project, an EU-funded initiative designed to enhance radiotherapy quality and safety in Catalonia. The project seeks to ensure equitable, high-quality cancer care for all patients in line with Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan and the EU4Health programme.

The project’s main goals are to:

• Draw up a specific clinical audit method for radiotherapy.
• Build a multidisciplinary team of auditors.
• Map out a long-term sustainability plan.
• Set up an IT structure for measuring quality indicators.
• Power a cultural shift towards continuous improvement in clinical practice.

The project is currently in the pre-clinical audit stage. The call for applications and selection of the group of auditors has been completed along with their training course. This selection process has resulted in a team made up of four specialists in radiation oncology , four in hospital radio-physics and three senior technicians in radiotherapy and dosimetry. The team covers the three main areas of radiotherapy practice.

These practitioners are from the following healthcare institutions:

• Hospital Clínic de Barcelona
• Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau
• Hospital Sant Joan de Reus
• Hospital Universitari Arnau de Vilanova de Lleida
• Institut Català D’oncologia Girona
• Institut Català D’oncologia L’Hospitalet
• Institut d’Oncologia del Vallès

The training programme will be rounded off with a course at Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau on how to provide feedback to the facilities audited. The auditors will then be observers during the first audits which will be led by international experts.

This initiative is a major milestone in the ongoing improvement of patient safety in radiotherapy and further ramps up the Catalan healthcare system’s commitment to quality care.