Family History Form (for download)

How to Refer a Patient

The Cancer Genetics Service (leaflet for download)

This site is aimed at healthcare professionals, and is intended to provide practical information about WMFACS, plus general information on inherited cancers, surveillance and clinical genetic management.

What is WMFACS?

WMFACS - the West Midlands Family Cancer Service - is a service in the West Midlands region for the identification and management of individuals at risk of developing cancer because of their family history.

Traditionally, patients with a cancer family history are referred by their GP to either a local surveillance service, a hospital clinician with an interest in cancer genetics, or to a clinical geneticist. An absence of agreed guidelines and organisation of services has meant that referral and management decisions have differed between different districts. As a result, many patients have been referred for surveillance and clinical genetics management inappropriately - i.e. when they have been at near-population risk of developing cancer. Read more about why we need a family cancer strategy and the demand for services.

WMFACS aims to address the demand for services and the inconsistencies in referral and management by:

• Providing a service that best utilises resources at primary, secondary and tertiary care level.
• Providing a questionnaire about the family history of cancer (the Family History Form) that can be given to patients at primary care level.
• Providing clear guidelines for referral that will identify those patients that do not need to be referred.
• Working together with clinicians in secondary care centres to agree how best to match local services and resources to the WMFACS algorithm (flow chart)
• Providing a central service for the assessment of Family History