Psycho-oncology (UK) Information & Help

    Resources for organizations, health professionals, patients and families relating to psychological aspects of cancer care

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 Local Information

 Our boundaries cover patients under the care of GPs in Leicestershire & Rutland within the Leicestershire Partnership Trust

 We offer help and advice to patients and health professionals regarding the psychological and psychiatric aspects of cancer care

 For help and advice about Psycho-oncology care in Leicestershire call (0116) 225 6218

A. Essential Resources

Here are some resources relating to our service for local health care professionals:

B. About Our Local Service

History

Leicestershire is large central midlands centre with 1million population including 30% ethnic minorities (largely from India and Pakistan living in Leicester city). The Leicestershire Psycho-oncology Service began formally in 2003. Before this time, referrals were seen as part of a general liaison psychiatry service. There was always an interest in psychosocial aspects of cancer care from Trevor Friedman, Consultant Psychiatrist and strong links with palliative care (particularly with Mari Lloyd-Williams and Nicky Rudd). Following a successful bid, Leicestershire Northampton and Rutland cancer network received over 1 millions in funding from National allocation to support specialist palliative care. This was originally intended to include a senior Psychologist. Sadly, no suitable person could be found but in 2003 an innovate proposal led to the appointment of one consultant (half funded by the Leicestershire Partnership Trust). This appointment was made March 2003.

Who is Working in the Team?

Who Do We See?

From the start we decided upon an open referral policy where we would try and make it simple to refer and with few barriers for patients and staff. We are happy to receive referrals from all three hospitals, LOROS, Manor Croft day centre and direct from GPs. We assess patients in hospital wards, outpatients and in the community (at home) where required and try and give patients a choice of appointment day, time and location. We have a simple one page referral form but accept written and telephone referrals. Of the new referrals in 2005, three quarters were for outpatient assessments or home visits and one quarter were ward referrals. We saw about 90% of these cases (but have issues with missed appointments or late cancelled appointments often due to understandable ill heath). Surprisingly we have seen a 20% growth rate year by year  although this seems to be plateauing in 2009.

         Contacts Table for 2008

New patients                251  Received  

New patients                245 seen

Follow-up                     754 seen                                  

Inpatients (new) Seen   77 seen

Hospice (new)              26 from LOROS

Telephone (follow-up)    144 offered telephone advice

What Do We Offer?

Like many services our most common presentation is depression/anxiety. We offer patients a choice or menu of care including face-to-face psychological work, medication, relaxation (including a formal relaxation programme) and group therapy. One major innovation is our new self-help package which is a booklet of information, advice and CBT type therapy. We also have an expert patient programme. We are pleased to have fostered strong links with health psychology. We are constantly trying to offer education and encouragement to cancer health professionals across our network. It has taken over one year to alert all staff to the fact that we are actually here…..partly by distributing 500 copies of a guide to our service (anyone can request a copy if required).

What Developments Are Happening?

Although we have been successful, presenting aspects of our service at various conferences and attracting post-graduates from as far afield as Malaysia the current NHS climate has reduced growth in mental health. As a result we have been trying to secure funding from the PCTs through the acute trust. We have just been successful in getting office and clinic space sited in the Cancer Centre (Osborne Building) rather than off-site. We have submitted a new bid to expand our educational role in 2008/9 with a programme of distress detection and management for all cancer professionals across the network. Despite these prospects we have our share of problems. There has been no dedicated secretary for the team since we started and this causes problem with data entry and tracking. We also want to find funding to employ a dedicated psychologist but have not yet been able to do so. We are not elitist and believe there s merit in pooling resources and working together as much as possible. Ultimately we are a small but enthusiastic and relaxed team and I would encourage anyone who wants to know more to get in touch.

C. Local Screening Programme

2009 saw the launch of our dedicated screening programme for psychosocial distress based around the distress thermometer.

Further details are here: www.psycho-oncology.info/screen.htm

www. Psycho-oncology.Information (c)