Volunteers at the Barts Health Macmillan cancer information and support centre at Whipps Cross Hospital are the stars of a new video on cancer support website be.Macmillan. The centre – which provides a support service for patients affected by cancer, their relatives and friends – was chosen out of more than 100 centres nationally to feature in the video. The be.Macmillan website provides healthcare professionals with up-to-date and reliable printed and audio information on cancer for use with their patients. Information can be ordered directly from the site and delivered within a couple of days. The video features interviews with manager, Perpetua Egan and head and neck cancer specialist, Denise Redmond, as well as volunteers including John Sandell. Together they demonstrate how the be.Macmillan website works, what it offers and who can benefit from it. Manager at the Barts Health Macmillan cancer information and support centre, Perpetua Egan, explained: “It’s testament to the centre’s strong reputation with Macmillan, our patients and their families that we were chosen to appear in the video. We were delighted to help our colleagues make their website as effective as possible by showing how critical it is to the service we provide.” Perpetua, who is a trained counsellor, and five volunteers see over 1,600 people a year at the Whipps Cross centre. They offer a place people can drop into, where they can share their concerns, get advice and up-to-date information on all types of cancer, and receive emotional and psychological support via their one-to-one service. People can also get clinical advice from a cancer specialist and access financial support by speaking to on-site advisors, as well as be signposted to other services in their local community. Now four years old, the Whipps Cross centre is one of three across Barts Health NHS Trust – with additional centres at St Bartholomew’s and Newham hospitals, as well as a fourth planned to open at The Royal London Hospital in the future. All rely on the dedication of volunteers to keep them running. The support offered by the team across the hospitals was also recognised earlier this month when they were awarded the Macmillan Deborah Hutton award. Created in memory of journalist and health campaigner Deborah Hutton who died of lung cancer in 2005, the award celebrates individuals or groups who provide practical support and care to people affected by cancer, beyond the expectation of their role. Perpetua explains: “I was absolutely thrilled to learn that our volunteers have been chosen to receive the prestigious Macmillan Deborah Hutton award. Being diagnosed with and living with cancer brings huge challenges and I am proud of our team’s determination to do all they can to support people.” The team are always looking for more volunteers to be able to provide additional support across all centres. And as Perpetua explained, it’s not just patients and their families who benefit from the service. “For many people, volunteering begins as a way to give some of their free time in thanks for the support that they or a loved one received from Macmillan. But they often find that by supporting others in crisis they too are rewarded, or their difficult experiences healed, which is incredibly moving to be a part of.”
•For further information about becoming a Macmillan volunteer at Barts Health, please contact Anusha Pasula on 020 7363 8758 or Perpetua Egan on 020 8535 6790 for an informal chat. •Watch the video at: http://be.macmillan.org.uk/HealthAndSocialCareProfessionals/ HealthAndSocialCareProfessionals.aspx