Introduction
Safety and quality are integral to the achievement of the ESTRO vision and the radiation oncology safety and quality committee (ROSQC) was established in 2016 to address issues of safety and quality from an ESTRO perspective. Safety and quality are ultimately the remit of every professional in radiotherapy, but the multidisciplinary composition of the ROSQC reflects the importance of the team approach and enables input from all professional perspectives. Defining safety and quality has helped us to define the aims of the ROSQC and to establish several subgroups to focus on areas that are key to the achievement and maintenance of safety and quality.
- Safety as defined in radiation oncology incorporates the prevention and management of the potential risks of malicious attacks, raising awareness of the importance of recognising, reporting and learning from incidents and the impact of poor practice on patient outcomes.
- The term quality in radiation oncology refers to the degree to which radiation therapy is delivered in a safe, effective, efficient, patient-centred and overall consistent and reproducible manner by meeting or exceeding established standards.
Aims
The activities of the ROSQC are aimed at improving safety and quality in the preparation and delivery of radiotherapy and to boost compliance of member states with the legal requirements as defined in the European Directives in the area of radiation safety and quality.
The ROSQC will strive to support ESTRO in leading education, research and development in the quality and safe delivery of radiotherapy and in providing help to strengthen ESTRO’s position in defining and participating in European Union (EU) research projects.
Goals
The ROSQC has defined the following goals that it wishes to achieve in this period.
- To implement the radiation oncology safety education and information system (ROSEIS) and actively encourage reporting at local, national and international levels.
- To establish a framework for ESTRO to influence the research strategy defined for future EU research projects that are related to the use of ionising radiation in medicine, focused on the issues pertinent to radiotherapy in the context of radiation protection, quality and safety
- To develop guidelines for the management of radiotherapy information in the event of local or national disasters.
- To review the lectures and videos on the platform and consider how they can be further developed and in what format they could be used most effectively.
Working groups
The ROSQC has set up working groups that will address the actions defined, establish timelines and furnish regular updates. The working groups will be led by members of the ROSQC and additional participants will be invited to join based on their interest/expertise in each area. In cases in which the topics of the working group interlink; regular updates will ensure that there is cross-fertilisation and will minimise duplication. These working groups are:
- Risk management and the ROSEIS platform
- Cyberattacks, preventative measures and emergency response
- Defining radiation protection in radiotherapy and how this can influence future EU projects and information sharing through the range of ESTRO and international channels
- Publications – the ESTRO newsletter ROSQC corner
- Education and educational material
- Implementing new/innovative technology or techniques