MOBILE HEALTHCARE PROVISION
The charity’s fourteenth and latest mobile cancer care unit – named ‘Christine’ after the charity’s late founder, Christine Mills – has specially engineered extendable sides, to create two consultation rooms.
surgeries or hospitals, and if we were able to ascertain the reasons why people don’t attend consultations earlier if they have a potentially cancerous health issue, then we could actually make a difference. This is where the concept for the next generation MCCU came from, and I’ve always been interested in the issue of deprivation and health inequality. Coming from a background in local government, it has always fascinated, yet bothered me, that the life expectancy of people from ethnic or less privileged social economic backgrounds was always so much lower than others. This formed the melting pot of what we could potentially do that was different in addressing these issues. While our current units go beyond
treatment, and focus on a more holistic approach, I wanted to take it to the next step to focus on the whole cancer journey. Convenience isn’t just about the types of treatment – it’s also about access to specialist oncologists and advice. The next generation project was started before the pandemic, but over the past 18 months it has become more apparent just how crucial that access is.
Multiple benefits Our mobile units deliver longer-term benefits to the NHS, in the form of a more streamlined patient pathway, and the additional capacity on hospital sites for more complex treatments, supporting partner Trusts to meet NHS England targets. By taking away the infusions and transfusions from traditional hospital settings, we are freeing up the oncology centres to carry out their core function: treating the more serious cancers, and the treatments that can’t be done elsewhere. The waiting rooms for such services in hospitals are often packed at 5.30 pm; our units show that it simply doesn’t have to be this way. The MCCUs have also proved to
be a lifeline throughout the COVID-19 crisis, when available reserve units were deployed to support NHS Trusts wherever possible, allowing vital cancer services to continue where they may not otherwise have been able to. Hope for Tomorrow is also providing support with tackling the backlog caused by the pandemic, enabling treatments to take place away from the hospital environment, and protecting this
vulnerable patient group while helping to reduce the spread of COVID-19. In 2020, the units delivered 24,492 patient treatments. There are also wider-reaching benefits
to the units; moving cancer care closer to patients has proven health and wellbeing benefits. In some cases, once initial consultations and first treatments have taken place, mobile cancer care units allow for the removal of hospital visits for all of a patient’s treatments, which can make a significant difference. The associated reduction in travel and waiting times delivers a vastly improved patient experience, reducing stress and anxiety levels.
Serving the NHS’s needs The charity’s five-year plan was to increase the number of patient treatments onboard by 40%, which we have exceeded. The next objective was then to deliver the innovation project, which is what we have been committed to this year (2021). The driver is to keep a close eye on what is happening in the world of treatment, and to thereby unearth what the charity can do to help more people. We ask ourselves, where is the technology? Where is the pharma industry taking us next? Can this be undertaken in a convenient mobile setting? How can we adapt if required to ensure it works? Keeping up with the technologies is key, as is full awareness that what we are doing matches that. Also, looking at the needs of the NHS, with its worsening capacity crisis: what can we do to assist with this? What innovative ideas do we have? The next generation unit fits into that.
Being self-contained, the unit has no long corridors for patients and staff to walk down, which saves time. ‘Everything is at hand, and it all makes for a better experience’.
40 Health Estate Journal March 2022
Case studies recounting recent patient experience Rebecca Walker, 69, was diagnosed with Stage 1B cancer just before Christmas 2020, and had a lumpectomy at the end of January 2021. She opted for
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