About the PERCS study

PERCS is a research project funded by the Irish Cancer Society and run by a team based in the Trinity St James’s Cancer Institute.

Through PERCS, we will run and evaluate a new exercise rehabilitation triage and referral system for people who have completed cancer treatment in St James’s Hospital.

The aim of the rehabilitation and referral system is to help people who have had cancer to become more active and improve their overall health.

Two phases of PERCS

1

PERCS – Phase One

The PERCS projects begins with the development of this website, which aims to provide support and information to people with and after cancer about becoming more active in a safe and enjoyable way.
2

Phase 2

The second phase of PERCS is to run and evaluate a new rehabilitation system for people who have finished cancer treatment.

  • Each participant will have a physical assessment and their psychological and social needs will be reviewed.
  • After this, we will refer the participant to an exercise-based rehabilitation service or resource which best meets their needs. They will be encouraged to do this form of exercise for 12 weeks.
  • After 12 weeks, we will repeat the physical assessment and review of psychological and social needs.

Recruitment has now opened for Phase 2 of PERCS! We are inviting people who had treatment for cancer in St James’s Hospital from March 2020 – May 2022 for an assessment, dates beginning January 2023.

What services will we refer participants to?

In the second phase of PERCS, we aim to make best use of existing services in our hospitals and community settings. Depending on each person’s need, we will refer participants to a service which can support them to engage in suitable, meaningful and beneficial activity. This may be a physiotherapist, a local community class or a medically-supervised exercise programme.

Other important issues identified during assessment, such as need for psychological assistance, will be addressed by referring participants to appropriate healthcare professionals.

What are we hoping to learn from PERCS?

By the end of the project, we hope to understand if this system:

  • Influences people’s function, abilities and quality of life after cancer treatment.
  • Would be suitable to expand and deliver on a larger scale, so that more people can access assessments and advice regarding activity after cancer treatment.

Looking at the system in detail, we want to see if this is an effective way to:

  • Connect acute and community services – allowing patients have a more smooth transition from acute to community care
  • Direct patients to the correct service for their level of need – get it right first time for the best patient experience and to best use our limited health care resources
  • Develop an integrated rehabilitation pathway from diagnosis onwards – moving towards a system where patients have easy access to rehabilitation throughout all stages of cancer care, by providing easy access to prehabilitation, acute rehabilitation and community rehabilitation

Who can take part in PERCS?

PERCS will be recruiting participants who have completed treatment for cancer in St James’s Hospital since March 2020.

People are welcome to take part in this study no matter to what extent they feel the cancer treatment affected them. We will assess people who have been severely affected by their cancer, as well as those who feel they are doing well, despite the cancer diagnosis.

For more information:
Contact us

Participant Information

Click the link below to download a copy of the Participant Information Leaflet for the PERCS study:

Download Participant Information Leaflet

Inside you will find detailed information about the study and contact details for the research team.

About the PERCS team

Patient and Public Involvement in PERCS