A safety net for earlier diagnosis of lung cancer.

Pulmonary nodules — small lesions often spotted incidentally on scans done for other reasons — can be an early sign of lung cancer. Clinical guidelines set out how they should be monitored, but adherence is inconsistent, and patients who miss follow-up can go on to be diagnosed late, when treatment options are limited. This programme asks how the NHS can build a reliable safety net around these patients.

The work spans a systematic review in CHEST of interventions to improve guideline adherence for nodule management, qualitative research on the nodule care pathway, and pump-prime funded data science work with University Hospitals Birmingham using routine data to understand where follow-up breaks down. It is also a vehicle for capacity building: an NIHR-funded undergraduate internship on the programme led to a medical student gaining co-authorship on multiple papers and pursuing a clinical academic career.