Peer review is an increasingly important part of the quality assurance process. It’s good to see how many departments across the West Midlands have already managed started to follow the RCR guidance, despite the capacity challenges we all face.
West Midlands Peer Review guidance
In late 2025, our clinical lead Dr Paul Sanghera consulted with the radiotherapy clinical leads across our 6 trusts in the West Midlands about how we should take forward peer review in the region.
As a result, we produced a regional guidance document which the Radiotherapy Expert Advisory Group approved at its meeting in December 2025. This includes some general guidance on job planning.
Following feedback, we reviewed and updated the guidance in September 2026.
Peer Review Audit
During Q4 of 2025-26, our trusts audited their recording of peer reviews completed. We took the findings to the Radiotherapy Network Oversight Group (NOG) meeting in April 2026.
At our October 2026 meeting, we took the re-audit results (based on Q2 of 2026-27) to our NOG meeting. These showed some pleasing improvements: our regional average increased from 62% to 72%.
Next Steps
We have shared the audit findings with relevant West Midlands radiotherapy stakeholders. The next steps are:
- We are asking everyone to carry on recording all the peer reviews that they do, so that this becomes ‘Business As Usual’
- We are asking trusts to continue implementing and monitoring the impact of their peer review improvement plans
- We will collectively focus on pancreas, heptobiliary, sarcoma and lung
- We will do another regional audit in 6 months’ time
Audit Dataset
Following discussion with the Radiotherapy clinical leads in September 2026, we have updated the downloadable audit form which can be used by trusts going forwards.
This identifies liver SABR, lung SABR and prostate SABR patients separately; and clarifies upper GI patients for peer review.