Centralisation of Care for Prevalent Urological Malignancies: The Case for Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer presents a significant challenge and burden for health care centres across the world. In the UK and other parts of Europe, as well as areas of the USA, centralisation of services has been implemented. In the UK and Europe, hospital centres are split into a hub-and-spoke system. High-volume centres carry out treatment as hubs and local hospitals carry out diagnostics and referrals as spokes. In this narrative mini review we evaluate whether centralisation of services has improved patient outcomes, streamlined the use of resources, and reduced costs. We also discuss the positive and negative impacts of centralisation of prostate cancer services. Patient summary: This mini-review discusses the current use of centralisation of prostate cancer services. We assess the evidence in favour of centralisation as well as the issues it can present to both health care systems and patients. Crown Copyright (c) 2021 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of European Association of Urology. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

Prostate cancer poses a significant challenge for healthcare centers worldwide, leading to the implementation of centralization of services in the UK, Europe, and parts of the USA. The centralization has shown positive effects in improving patient outcomes, streamlining resource utilization, and reducing costs, but has also brought about negative impacts that need to be carefully addressed.