CANCER CARE GAP NARROWS AS NEW NAVIGATOR SERVICE LAUNCHES
A new team of cancer support experts will work alongside cancer nurses at the James Paget University Hospital to help patients with their practical and emotional needs.
Jointly funded by Macmillan Cancer Support and the Norfolk and Waveney Health and Care Partnership, the four-person team of Cancer Care Navigators includes Jo Pawlett, who will draw on her experience as a breast cancer patient to help others.
(L-R): Cancer Care Navigators Sara Hannant, Jo Pawlett, Jeanette Masters and Lyndsey Hewitt
A new cancer support service that will transform the practical and emotional support available to people with the illness in Great Yarmouth and Waveney is to officially launch on World Cancer Day, which takes place on Friday 4 February.
The James Paget University Hospital (JPUH) has timed the launch of their new Cancer Care Navigator Service to coincide with the global day of awareness which this year takes ‘closing the care gap’ as its theme.
The team of four has been jointly funded by Macmillan Cancer Support and the Norfolk and Waveney Health and Care Partnership to ensure that every patient newly diagnosed with cancer at JPUH has the chance to have a one-to-one, personal conversation about their non-medical needs and discover the relevant practical, emotional and financial support available.
Their non-medical needs could include anything from feelings of anxiety, to worries about money. The initial conversation also gives patients the time and space to raise any concerns or questions they might have.
For those who want it, the navigators will continue to check in as they progress through treatment and beyond, pointing them towards specialist advice and local support services as their needs change.
The team of navigators will sit within JPUH’s wider cancer team and have the capacity to support the circa 120 people that are diagnosed with cancer by the hospital’s medical teams every month.
Nikki Sawkins, the Macmillan Survivorship Lead Nurse who has been overseeing the team said:
“As a non-clinical service that bridges the gap between the medical support a cancer nurse specialist (CNS) can provide and the social and practical care available in the community, this initiative is through its very existence closing a gap in cancer care and ensuring that the wide-ranging needs of people with cancer don’t go unmet.
“The navigators will be a single, crucial point of contact for anyone who is trying to find their way through the blur of hospital appointments, medical notes and emotional ups and downs that a cancer diagnosis can bring. That remains true if they are sent to another hospital for treatment or surgery, as is so often the case for our cancer patients.”
A ‘navigator’ is one of a series of healthcare professionals, along with cancer support workers and social prescribers, who complement the work of specialist cancer nurses by helping to coordinate a patient’s all-round care.
Cancer Care Navigator Jo Pawlett can appreciate the value of the service more than most, having been reluctant to bother her nurse after she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010:
“You go from sitting in the room being told you have cancer to going home with all this information that you can’t process. I received a phone call from the breast care nurse a few days later but didn’t want to ask her any of the questions that to me sounded silly.
“There is no such thing as a silly question, but the reality is that many of us are reluctant to ask our nurse about the smaller things, or just call for a general chat, because we know how busy they are.
“That’s where the navigator role comes in. We have that extra time to talk about all your needs and concerns and direct you to relevant support services, with any medical worries being referred back to the nursing team.”
The launch of the ground-breaking service represents just one of the ways JPUH is aiming to close the care gap this World Cancer Day.
Following the success of three cancer information and support events held last year — one virtually — the Macmillan team will bring together health and social care professionals and representatives of voluntary and charitable organisations to talk about the services and activities they provide in the Great Yarmouth and Waveney area for people with cancer, their families and friends.
Joy Moulton, Macmillan Partnership Manager for Norfolk and Waveney, said:
“We know that cancer affects everyone differently and if left unmanaged, can harm a person’s finances, relationships and ability to live well. That changes when they are given the opportunity to have a conversation about their needs and concerns right after their diagnosis, and it’s the navigator who has the time to listen to their worries and help them with the administrative headache that cancer can create.
“This navigator service comes at a critical time for a cancer workforce that has been working flat-out to ensure people get the best care possible. There are more than 47,000 people ‘missing’ a cancer diagnosis in the UK[i] and as these cases begin to come onto the system, cancer nurses expect to see an influx of patients with more advanced disease and more complex care needs.
“Having the navigators there to support with less complex, non-clinical issues means cancer nurse specialists can focus on patients with the highest level of need.
“These posts are the latest in a series of investments Macmillan has been making across Norfolk — the North Norfolk Macmillan Centre being another recent example — and underlie the vital importance that supporters like our Great Yarmouth, Gorleston and Lowestoft Committee can play in transforming cancer care.”
Maggie Tween, NHS Norfolk and Waveney Clinical Commissioning Group Cancer Programme Manager said:
“We are really pleased to have a team of Cancer Care Navigators based at the James Paget hospital who will be on hand to support local people of Norfolk and Waveney. It can be a very worrying time receiving a cancer diagnosis, but we are pleased that we have specialist services in place to help. Cancer Care Navigators are there for support ranging from emotional and practical support.
“We hope that having these navigators in place will provide that extra help when patients need it most.”
The fourth ‘Open Doors to the Community’ event will take place virtually from 10am on Friday 4th February and will focus on cancer support services. Email your full name and email address to cancersupport@jpaget.nhs.uk to register for the event.
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For further information, please contact:
Talia Samuelson, Macmillan External Communications Officer — East of England
07703 676493| tsamuelson@macmillan.org.uk
Notes to Editors
The Cancer Care Navigators can support people by:
· providing practical information and support about their cancer
· explaining the financial support available, and how patients can access it
· exploring what is important to their physical and emotional wellbeing
· signposting or referring them to local activities and resources
· facilitating Macmillan HOPE (Help Overcoming Problems Effectively) courses that help people who have come to the end of their treatment to transition back to their daily lives.
About Macmillan Cancer Support
At Macmillan, we give people with cancer everything we’ve got. If you’re diagnosed, your worries are our worries. We will help you live life as fully as you can.
And we don’t stop there. We’re going all out to find ever better ways to help people with cancer, helping to bring forward the day when everyone gets life-transforming support from day one.
We’ll do whatever it takes. For information, support or just someone to talk to, call 0808 808 00 00 or visit macmillan.org.uk
[i] Gap in number of diagnoses is estimated by the difference between observed cancer diagnosis activity and the expected cancer diagnosis activity for every month from March 2020 onwards. Expected activity is based on a monthly average from 2019 and weighted by the number of working days in the month. Acknowledging that reported activity does not capture all cancer diagnoses (for example in Northern Ireland and Scotland it just includes pathology confirmed diagnosis), we apply the % gap between observed and expected activity to the total number of cancer diagnoses we expect each month, based on latest official incidence data releases for each nation. Gaps are calculated separately for each nation using different diagnosis activity data: for England we use the Rapid Cancer Registration Dataset (NCRAS); for Scotland the Cancer Pathology dashboard (Public Health Scotland); for Northern Ireland the Patients with Pathology Samples Indicating Cancer report (NICR); for Wales we use first definitive treatment counts reported within Cancer Waiting Times as a proxy for diagnosis activity and we apply to the previous month to account for the expected lag between diagnosis and treatment. Please note these estimates are based on the best data currently available, however this data has been produced under an accelerated timescale in order to provide insights in as timely a manner as possible during the Covid-19 pandemic, and it remains subject to further changes and updates. Findings presented here may therefore change based on future data releases.
