12 Psychological wellbeing support available We all need the support of our colleagues to provide the best possible care for our patients. If your team is facing challenges, the trust’s team psychology support service may be able to assist: • This service is part of our occupational health and wellbeing offer, and focusses on the psychological wellbeing of all teams across the RFL. • We provide tailored, group interventions to help teams navigate concerns such as burnout, stress, significant changes, communication challenges and more. • Any team at the trust can use this service and staff who are interested can discuss with their manager. • Visit Freenet for further details – team leaders and managers can contact us via rf-tr.teampsychology@nhs.net. 60 seconds with… Donna Hodge Lead upper gastrointestinal (GI) cancer clinical nurse specialist based at CFH Tell us about your role? I manage the upper GI two week wait pathway and the team of nurses who carry out a telephone assessment of the patients referred to us on that pathway. Patients are then referred for appropriate investigation and of the 5% that have cancer it will be myself or another colleague who will share the news with them in clinic and order further investigations to get them into a treatment programme. The other part of my job involves helping support the oncology clinics throughout the trust with three other upper GI specialist nurses. Patients will see a consultant but we are there to help in other ways. I see us as the hub at the centre of a wheel able to refer on to other agencies and help patients navigate their diagnosis. What does that involve? Sadly 80% of patients for the cancers we look after – oesophogeal, gastric, pancreatic, bile duct and gall bladder – will be on a palliative pathway and oncology management is our focus as those who have curative disease and are undergoing surgery will be treated off site. We are able to improve their quality of life and lengthen survival. There is a lot on offer and it’s our job to make sure patients get the help they need so we can signpost them to psychological support, benefits advice, help with their heating bills as you need to keep your house warm or hospital car parking exemptions. What do patients want to know? It really comes down to asking patients what is important to them. For some it is about knowing that their pet is going to go to a good home or if they can get someone to help them get their shopping. We also refer patients to their local community palliative care teams. People always think hospices only deal with end of life care but actually nurses will go into the patient’s home and can help them with things like pain relief and combatting nausea. What are you excited about for the future of cancer care? New treatments are coming online all the time and immunotherapy has really changed things by offering improved quality of life and increased longevity. When I started in this role eight years ago most of my patients had died within a year and while that’s still a possibility, I now have patients alive two and a half years from diagnosis. It gives people more time to help make memories. What do you love about the job? I work with an incredible team of nurses and I think we are privileged to be working with these patients because we’re helping them achieve what they want. I also want to give a special shout out for our specialist dieticians. They’re a gamechanger for our patients who can have issues digesting their food and swallowing. How do you like to unwind away from work? I’m a real homebody and always have a DIY project on the go in the house. I’m a fan of power tools!
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTI5NzM=