In England and Wales the “Improving Outcomes Guidance” (IOG) from the NHS regulator NICE, published in 2006, provides the underlying principles for the organisation of sarcoma services. Soft tissue and bone sarcomas should be treated under the care of a sarcoma Multi-Disciplinary Team at a specialist sarcoma centre. There are five nationally-commissioned centres for treatment of bone sarcomas.
Treatment standards in England are determined by the peer review programme introduced by the National Cancer Action Team to monitor the effect of the NICE Improving Outcomes Guidance (IOG) for People. (Download NICE IOG)
In Scotland the Scottish Sarcoma Network is one of the national managed cancer treatment networks, and brings together the five sarcoma treatment centres. In Northern Ireland, the specialist clinicians are based in Belfast.
Sarcoma in children will be treated according to the protocols of the Children Cancer and Leukaemia Group whose centres across the UK specialise in children’s cancers. Teenage sarcoma is also treated in specialist units, where these are available, and usually by the same surgeons and oncologists who treat children and adults.
For England and Wales surgery for bone sarcomas is undertaken in one of the five nationally funded centres indicated above but other treatment may be in a paediatric or teenage unit.