Help us create a Senior Adult Oncology Programme
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Establishing a team dedicated to the care of older adults being managed at The Royal Marsden
Background
With the support of our West London Cancer Alliance RM Partners, we are establishing a Senior Adult Oncology Programme (SAOP) team dedicated to the care of older adults being managed at The Royal Marsden.
This team will include different professions (doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, dieticians, pharmacists, psychologists and social workers) and aim to provide these patients a more personalised treatment approach. This approach can reduce the risk of side effects and inpatient admissions on anticancer drug therapies and surgery and improve patients’ quality of life.
Our plan
We will start implementing this new model of care in the Breast Unit medical oncology clinics at the Sutton site of the hospital in November 2021.
In these clinics, older patients with breast cancer being considered for anticancer drug therapy will meet a dedicated doctor, nurse, physiotherapist, occupational therapist, dietician and pharmacist who will provide them with specific recommendations on the management of their cancer and any additional problems based on their individual circumstances.
Upon successful implementation of this model by the end of 2022, we will gradually expand the service and the SAOP team to include also older individuals diagnosed with different tumours and being considered for surgery.
Get involved
Share your ideas - What would make an excellent Senior Adult Oncology Programme? What should our priorities be? Add your own idea or like and comment on ideas already posted
Leave a comment - What is the one thing you want to say? Do you have any thoughts or comments you would like to share? Tell us what is on your mind here
Ask us a question - Want to know more about how this service will look? Interested in what the team will look like and how it will operate?
Register your interest in getting involved - email [email protected] if you want to work with us to build this service
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What would make an excellent Senior Adult Oncology Programme? What should our priorities be?
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View All Ideasover 2 years ago
Blood test area for elderly or same area as Their appts
Blood tests area for elderly patients
almost 2 years ago
I work in sexual health. Im 60 and am dismayed at the lack of help with itimacy for the older generation across the board.
Intimacy. Often lacks or falls apart due to treatments. More help needed to overcome intimacy depletion. Physical, pyschological and medical help needed.
11 months ago
Quick feedback about good results
So often we hear that ‘someone will be in touch about your results if we need to take action’, on the principle that ‘no news is good news’. However, there’s always a nagging doubt that I have been forgotten. Especially at the moment with the new MyMarsden system being set up. The last two sessions in outpatients have required a 4 or 5-hour wait. Could someone have part of their job description as a sort of ‘good news fairy’ - possibly an admin role - to give people their results (if they are good/negative) and help set minds at rest? I don’t get the sense that the medics are fully aware of the impact of stress on their patients, especially those who don’t understand how your complex diagnostic and reporting systems operate. Which is pretty much all patients, frankly. Eg my recent pelvic scan found nothing abnormal, but I had to wait 3 weeks AND approach my team twice, AND be called in for a 4.5 hour wait in outpatients, to be then informed by my ( indignant!!) consultant that there was NAD. Lots of fuss, and stress for me and extra work for the team could have been avoided. And I wouldn’t have spent so much time telling everyone I know how chaotic and horrible it is when I go to outpatients…….
