About SACTCheck

Clearer information.
Connected cancer care.

Operationalising NCCP protocols at the point of care.

SACTCheck brings treatment assessment, clinical knowledge and patient understanding together around the exact regimen. Our mission is to make national treatment guidance easier to use, explain and verify throughout the treatment journey.

Discover the project

01 / Purpose

Make complex guidance usable.

A treatment regimen is more than a list of medicines.

It has an indication, a sequence, laboratory criteria, possible toxicities, supportive medicines and monitoring needs. Those details can change between treatment phases, schedules and clinical settings. Clinicians need to find and reconcile them; patients need to understand what they mean for everyday life.

SACTCheck grew from a practical day-ward question: how can authoritative protocol information be brought into a clear, repeatable assessment without losing its detail or hiding the reasoning?

The project began with structured assessment of blood results and treatment toxicities against National Cancer Control Programme (NCCP) protocols. It has developed into a wider information platform for systemic anti-cancer therapy (SACT), including chemotherapy, immunotherapy, targeted therapy and endocrine treatment.

The ambition is continuity: from the treatment source, to the clinical discussion, to the information a patient takes home.

02 / The platform

A full suite, organised around the regimen.

Find the treatment once, then move between the resources relevant to that clinical context. Availability and depth vary by regimen; the library is being developed progressively.

In the clinic

Regimen library & NCCP sources: Search by medicine, regimen, indication or NCCP number. Confirm the exact treatment and open its official protocol directly.
Treatment assessment engine: Compare available laboratory results and toxicity information with encoded protocol criteria. Review the value, criterion, finding and rationale together. A partial assessment stays partial: missing information remains unassessed.
Clinician knowledge base: Bring together treatment purpose, drug mechanisms, schedules, clinical evidence, practical considerations and monitoring information, with source links and limitations.
Supportive care & antiemetic scripts: Access regimen-specific support and draft antiemetic prescriptions, including separate treatment-phase support where encoded. Prescribers verify the choices against the current protocol, local guidance and individual needs.
Consent-discussion support: Use treatment explanations, benefits, risks and patient resources to prepare a more informed conversation. Generated material supports the discussion and local consent process; it does not establish that informed consent has been obtained.

With the patient

Patient platform: Plain-language explanations of the exact treatment, how medicines are given and what to expect. Regimen-specific content takes priority over generic chemotherapy information.
Visual side-effect information: Body maps and cycle views help explain relevant effects, their possible timing and when to contact the treating team. General cycle information can be explored without entering appointment dates.
Phases & practical treatment details: Where mapped, explain successive drug phases, chemotherapy and radiotherapy relationships, oral treatment breaks, and port or infusion-pump logistics.
Longitudinal milestones: Selected pathways outline baseline, during-treatment and follow-up checks, such as imaging, heart monitoring or bone-health assessment. These are educational expectations to discuss with the team, not booked appointments or an overdue-test alert system.
Information to take home: Regimen guides, Treatment Passports, treatment/contact cards and QR-linked resources keep the treatment explanation accessible between visits, with printable options where available.

Source review & governance

The NCCP update tracker and validation workspace support review of source changes, provenance and outstanding validation work. A source link or automated check alone does not establish clinical validation.

Sustainability

A dedicated workspace explores evidence and resource considerations around treatment delivery. It distinguishes measured evidence from assumptions, with clinical benefit, safety and patient preference taking priority.

Explore sustainability

03 / Treatment journeys

See how the pieces fit together.

Patients often need an overview of the whole course as well as an explanation of the next visit. The clinical view and patient view should describe the same treatment clearly.

Understand the plan
Treatment purpose, indication, medicines and how the phases relate.
Prepare for treatment
Relevant baseline checks, supportive medicines and practical arrangements.
Navigate each phase
Cycle patterns, treatment breaks, expected effects and ongoing monitoring.
Understand what follows
The next treatment phase, maintenance or follow-up, where applicable.

Different pathways need different explanations.

A breast cancer pathway may involve surgery, systemic treatment, radiotherapy and longer-term endocrine or targeted treatment. Their order and monitoring depend on the indication and individual plan. Other regimens may involve a pump, a switch between medicines or a repeating oral-treatment schedule. SACTCheck’s developing milestone content aims to make those relationships visible without asking patients to build their own calendar.

Milestone coverage is being expanded. The treating team confirms which steps, tests and timings apply to an individual patient.

Explore a patient-information example

Pembrolizumab, pemetrexed and carboplatin — an example of the information format, not a treatment recommendation.

04 / The value

Less searching. More understanding.

These are the benefits the project aims to deliver and evaluate.

For clinical teams

Reduce repeated navigation between documents, make regimen criteria and uncertainty visible, support clear documentation and keep related resources close to the assessment.

For patients & families

Make the treatment plan easier to revisit, explain transitions and practical details, and support better questions and conversations without adding unnecessary data-entry burden.

For services

Provide a consistent information structure that can be reviewed, maintained and studied across regimens, while complementing existing clinical systems and local workflows.

Effects on accuracy, workload, understanding, safety and clinical outcomes have not been established. They require independent evaluation.

05 / Our principles

Make the source and the reasoning visible.

Specific to the treatment: The regimen, indication, schedule and treatment phase matter. Shared drug content is useful only when the clinical context still matches.
Transparent about uncertainty: The assessment engine applies encoded rules to the information entered. Missing data remain unassessed; an incomplete assessment is not a clearance to treat.
Traceable and reviewable: Official source access, version records, explicit criteria, source reconciliation and automated regression checks support scrutiny. Technical tests do not replace independent clinical and pharmacy review.
Useful without unnecessary burden: Clear language, visual timelines, focused information and printable resources are design priorities. Patient and public involvement will help test whether these choices meet real needs.

Current status and clinical boundaries

Feasibility evaluation build — not for routine clinical use. SACTCheck is a development prototype for demonstration and structured evaluation. Independent consultant and oncology-pharmacy validation is pending.

Its assessments, draft consent documents, supportive-care scripts and patient information require independent review before clinical deployment. Source links and automated checks do not establish clinical validation.

It does not prescribe, authorise treatment or replace the current official protocol, a complete clinical assessment, local policy or professional judgement. Draft documents require verification by the responsible clinical team. Patient information supports discussion with the treating team; do not start, stop or change treatment based on this platform.

SACTCheck is independently developed. It is not an official NCCP or HSE product, and no NCCP or HSE endorsement is implied. Do not enter identifiable patient information into this shared evaluation build.

06 / The project

Clinician-led. Developed step by step.

Dr Paul O’Brien, MRCPI

Founder & Clinical Lead, SACTCheck
Oncology Registrar, Cork University Hospital

Paul conceived and created SACTCheck from his experience in oncology day-ward care, where applying a treatment protocol means bringing together laboratory results, symptoms, treatment phases and the individual patient’s circumstances.

His background spans genetics and food science, followed by medical training at Zhejiang University in China and clinical practice in Ireland. That combination informs his interest in translating scientific knowledge into practical tools for everyday care.

Through SACTCheck, his focus is on making complex treatment guidance easier for clinicians to navigate and easier for patients and families to understand. He leads the platform’s clinical direction and development, with independent review, patient involvement and evaluation central to its next stage.

Contact Paulpaul.obrien3@hse.ieFor SACTCheck project enquiries, collaboration and feedback.

Built around clinical use

Development is iterative: reconcile a regimen with its source, examine the assessment logic, build the related clinical and patient resources, then check their consistency together.

The aim is the same standard of depth across the full suite, with coverage expanded in manageable batches. Clinical feedback helps identify practical gaps, while patient and public involvement is planned to shape the information people use at home.

The path towards adoption

Work in progress and planned next steps:

Complete and maintain the content. Extend regimen-specific resources, phase relationships and longitudinal monitoring information; review changes to source guidance.
Verify independently. Pursue consultant oncology and oncology-pharmacy review, source concordance checks and assessment-case evaluation.
Design with the people using it. Develop patient and public involvement (PPI), alongside clinician usability feedback, to shape language, accessibility and priorities.
Evaluate before wider implementation. Study feasibility and shadow use alongside standard care, then explore service integration and HSE adoption through appropriate governance.

PPI, independent validation and wider adoption are development goals; this page does not imply they have been completed or approved.

Explore SACTCheck

Start with the regimen.
See the connected picture.

Open the library to explore the clinical workflow, patient platform and NCCP source for a treatment.

Open regimen library