Cancer patients need practical help and support during and after treatment
Care for people with cancer focuses on the physical, but emotional/social needs must be treated too, says Gordon Mclean
Living with a cancer diagnosis impacts a person in ways far beyond the physical. Through all the tests and scans and treatments, we want to make sure the emotional needs of the person are also focused on.
While the clinical focus on treatment is crucial, we must make sure that the emotional and social needs of people living with cancer – and those around them – are also met.
This is especially true after treatment ends, as without the regular contact with medical professionals for active treatment, we know people can feel very alone.
It’s often between treatments or when treatment ends that the full impact of a cancer diagnosis hits. It can then be the financial issues and feelings of isolation become overwhelming and when the need for emotional support and information is at its highest.
That’s why our services offering emotional support and information are so important. We have made it our mission to be available to everyone with cancer when they need us and we are striving to do this with services the length and breadth of the county. We are online, in hospitals and at the end of a phone with our support line service.
Working in partnerships we are in the heart of communities, providing Cancer Information and Support Services in friendly and safe environments across the country. We are now increasingly using mobile services to ensure we reach everyone at their point of need.
In Scotland, we have a huge population of people living in rural communities where transport links are poor, travel can be very costly and take a huge amount of time. That means travelling to face-to-face support services in towns or cities can be incredibly difficult.
While many people are happy to go online or pick up the phone, for some this isn’t an option. Many people, particularly among the older population, struggle to access literature digitally. Others, of any age, may not be able to afford to have an internet connection or even a phone line. In some rural areas internet access and mobile signals are poor.
The challenges of providing services in smaller rural communities means people living with cancer often go without the vital face-toface emotional support they need as it simply is not available, heightening their feeling of isolation and exclusion.
Our Mobile Information and Support Service is helping break down these barriers to emotional support. The service manned by trained staff travels to the most remote areas in Scotland from the Western Isles and Highlands to towns in the Borders and back again. The team ensures anyone, whether they themselves have a diagnosis, know someone who does or are worried about the signs and symptoms of cancer, receive the proper support they need. Signposting individuals for financial assistance, childcare provision, emotional support groups and more.
This month our team are visiting towns across the Western Isles in “Basil” the mobile service bus, specifically designed to travel to difficultto-reach areas where roads may be challenging. This will be the first of many visits to small towns and the islands around Scotland.
The staff on our mobile service regularly hear from people who are extremely grateful to be able to access face-to-face information and support on their doorstep. While we can’t be everywhere at once, our hope is that through the mobile bus, our fixed information and support services in hospitals and communities, and our phone line and online community, everyone with cancer in Scotland will be able to talk to someone about how they feel or what they need.
Although we’ve been offering support services for decades, we know that too often the care offered to people with cancer is focused on their physical health. In the understandable rush to provide the best possible treatment or clinical care, the other
needs of the person with cancer can be overlooked.
Our hope is that one day every single person with cancer in Scotland will be sign-posted to cancer support and information services, and will have the opportunity to access them in the way that’s best for them, whether that’s online, face-to-face in a local library, or by visiting our mobile bus as it brings support into the heart of rural communities. G or do nm clean, national programme Manager, Macmillan Scotland