NHS Scotland delivers a higher standard of cancer care using Microsoft Power Platform

Maintaining the highest standards of cancer care is a top priority for NHS Scotland, the country’s national health system. One group driving that priority is the West of Scotland Cancer Network (WoSCAN) - one of three regional cancer networks within the health system. WoSCAN serves a population of 2.5 million people and is committed to improving the patient experience and outcomes at every stage of their cancer journey.

As part of its many workstreams for monitoring, supporting and improving cancer care, underlying boards within WoSCAN co-ordinate multidisciplinary team (MDT) meetings across the region. These sessions bring together clinicians from across the network — oncologists, radiologists, pathologists, coordinators, nurses, and others — to review patient referrals and decide on the best treatment plans for each patient. 

Managing the MDT process can be challenging. Much of this MDT workflow is often reliant on manual data entry, email exchanges, shared drives, spreadsheets, and standalone applications. This can make it difficult to ensure that all information required for an MDT meeting is captured, validated, and made available at the right time for clinical decision‑making.

Several years ago, WoSCAN set out to change and modernize the MDT process with several digital MDT applications. However, these applications were difficult and costly to customize for different cancer care groups. As a result, many groups in the network have continued to rely on manual processes or interim tools for MDT meeting management. 

Recently, NHS Scotland worked with its technology partner to develop an improved MDT app on Power Platform with a focus on MDTs for cancer care. The system provides more streamlined workflows, improved usability, and strong alignment to the security, governance and development standards of NHS Scotland. 

A more structured and automated workflow 

Previously, referrals were sent to an MDT coordinator over email who would need to compile details manually for each patient. Clinicians can now use the new app built on Power Apps to submit referrals of cancer patients directly into the MDT system. Related data for each patient can also be added directly into the app from other specialists assigned to a case, such as radiologists and pathologists.

If the patient is a previous referral, the process is even easier. The referring clinician can simply enter a patient identifier code which triggers a Power Automate cloud flow to download patient details from Dataverse. To maintain privacy requirements, this data is automatically removed from the app once a user session has ended. 

With all patient data structured and centralized in one place, the MDT coordinator can validate referrals and schedule MDT meetings in minutes. During the MDT meeting, all data needed for each patient review is made available conveniently and securely within the app, including imaging, pathology results, history, and current clinical status. 

Once recommendations for care are entered into the app, cloud flows automatically pull data from the app to generate care plans and letters out to the patient’s general practitioner. These documents are then automatically uploaded to the National Digital Platform, a central store for NHS Scotland, and then disseminated as a PDF to the EPR and GP record systems for immediate visualization of the outcome.

Using Power Platform and other integrated Microsoft tools, the team was also able to ensure compliance with UK GDPR, the Data Protection Act 2018, and NHS Scotland information governance policies. For example, Dataverse role-based access controls are used to make sure users can only view and update the information appropriate for their regional, clinical and administrative responsibilities. Authentication is handled through Microsoft Entra ID, giving secure sign in and simplified user management.

Built for scale 

One of the keys to the success of the application was the tight collaboration between developers and clinicians who worked closely on every detail. “Power Platform enabled us to drive a highly iterative development design process in a way that we simply couldn’t do with pro code,” says Carl Buckley, Principal Consultant at Robiquity. “Changes requested by a clinician were often delivered in days, rather than weeks.” 

The result was a fully customized solution that drove rapid adoption with minimal training.  “We were able to customize our MDT solution with Power Platform in a way that instantly resonated with our users,” says Dr. Kevin Burton, Clinical Lead for MDT Improvement WOSCAN and Consultant Gynecological Oncologist. 

Shortly after launch, Dr. Burton received multiple emails from across the team praising the system as an easier way to submit and manage referrals. He was particularly happy with the feedback he received from people who were initially skeptical of the new system – but became supporters once they saw the improvement over processes.

Working with Power Platform also enabled the team to deliver on another key goal: scalability. With modular data structures and reusable workflows, the solution can be efficiently extended to multiple cancer case specialties without rebuilding everything from scratch. Cloud flows can be extended or replicated to support increased demand, while the underlying platform automatically manages resource allocation, concurrency, and storage expansion. This ensures the system remains robust and adaptable as organizational requirements evolve.

Leveraging this structure, the team at WoSCAN is already working with their partner Robiquity on new versions of the solution for dermatological, hematological, and breast cancers – with even more versions planned for the future. “For the first time, and by using Power Platform, we have a multidisciplinary team (MDT) management system that can be easily extended and scaled to support all cancer disciplines and organizations," says Paul Docherty, Applications Architecture Manager at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, one of the four NHS Scotland boards that make up WoSCAN. The aim being to roll out the platform to all cancer MDT’s in the west of Scotland, with interest also being shown across other cancer networks in Scotland. 

A solid data foundation for the future 

Along with a faster, more efficient way to upload and structure patient data, the cancer team at WoSCAN now has a better to way to access and analyze that data. 

Dr. Burton also notes that, by using the system to review patients before MDT meetings, his team has been able to move 25-35% of patients out of the MDT meeting process and into more routine care pathways. That has freed up time to focus on more complex patients and make better use of specialists’ capacity.

More structured data also helps with service planning. For example, clinicians can use the data to estimate how many patients may qualify for a new treatment so clinics and chemotherapy teams can better plan staffing and capacity. 

“Moving data efficiently into Dataverse is also paving the way for exciting, AI-driven scenarios using Copilot Studio and Microsoft Foundry,” says Docherty. For example, WoSCAN is already exploring scenarios in which AI could help extract relevant medical history from patient records, identify higher-risk patients earlier, surface relevant clinical guidelines and trials, and support better scheduling and downstream coordination. 

“We see our cancer care MDT solution on Power Platform as leading solution not just within our region but across the entire NHS network in the UK,” says Dr. Burton. “It has really the changed the way we manage and run MDT meetings and contributed to a higher standard of cancer care at NHS Scotland.”