Looking back over the last year we are pleased to report some very positive results:-
Following our contact with the new CEO of SaTH and his approval we have gone on to work with the Trust in developing a successful bid for a Macmillan Cancer and Information Centre at the Princess Royal Hospital Telford, this includes a full time manager role which the trust have agreed to support after three years funding for the post by Macmillan. We are optimistic that much of the detail has now been resolved and look forward to its opening this year.
Ongoing Care Booklet -We worked with the breast cancer nurses to amend an Ongoing Care booklet developed by UHNS and then Wolverhampton Trust for Breast Cancer patients. We have now printed 2,000 of these booklets for distribution by the BCN.
Following on from this we agreed to work with the Shropshire Prostate Support group to develop an ongoing care booklet for Prostate patients. we are now investigating if this information is available on the National Information Prescriptions web site or could indeed be made available.
Advertising – as we were keen to inform more cancer patients of our existence and purpose, during the year we designed and had printed advertising material for the group, this included mugs – which went to the hospices, Hamar Centre, Chemotherapy and Radiotherapy units, cotton bags, postcards and new leaflets – which have gone to every library and GP practice in Telford & Shropshire. We also created a display board, showing our objectives and achievements and this has been displayed at the main Telford library for two weeks and used at a disability event within Telford and at a Cancer support group where we gave a talk.
Our new web site has 47 pages and had 366 unique visitors between July and the end of December with each visitor averaging a look at 3 pages. www.cancerforum.org.uk
We are continuing to look at the National Cancer Patient Experience Survey and replies to our enquiries to the various cancer site leads have been trickling in. Having identified a lower than desirable score with patients being told they were entitled to free prescriptions we wanted to raise awareness and so developed a poster advising this. The Trust printed and distributed them within both hospitals and the Forum printed and laminated 100 which went to every library and GP in both Telford and Shropshire. This was shared with the Partnership following which all other locality groups changed the logo to their own and distributed 100 within each area.
As we were keen to fully engage with the new Value Stream Chief for Cancer Care at SaTH, we are pleased that Dr Srihari has now attended some of our meetings and has expressed support for the work of the forum.
Exercise for cancer patients – we are extremely proud of the work in this area which has resulted in a bid going to Macmillan for a fantastic programme of work, which includes training 30 staff in motivational techniques, training 9 community exercise instructors to level 4 CanRehab. The project will become part of the cancer pathway for every patient in the long run, with an initial pilot in just one or two tumour areas. This is an extremely exciting and innovative piece of work which is being supported at all levels from Commissioners, PCT and CNS’s and we would like to formally thank and acknowledge the support of David Whiting and Miranda Ashwell, project lead.
Cancer Survivorship – this was added to our objectives towards the end of the year and we are waiting on further steering from our LIT who have asked us to take the lead on this area of work. Obviously the work we already have underway with Exercise for cancer patients is the start of this wider topic of Survivorship.
