OK, so this wasn’t a guideline, but a really useful course I and a few other Pallanteers recently went on. You may have seen that the 2ww forms for colorectal cancer have changed. You are now asked to work out the chance of the patient having cancer from their presenting symptoms, with the help of the handy chart on the back… You may also have seen the lovely mouse mats and flip charts with colour coded diagrams on…
This is to make a bit of sense of these, because it’s not all obvious. I will also add a couple of really important learning points from the day…
The Risk Assessment Tool (RAT)
This is the colourful chart pictured above. You can use it to work out the risk of the patient having cancer from their presenting symptoms. A risk of over 3% is considered enough to warrant a 2ww referral. Unless listed otherwise on the form, other symptoms can be managed more routinely.