Chemotherapy nurses hit the road to give patients their treatment in the comfort of their own home

Posted 24th September 2015

Highly-trained nurses from The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre, one of the UK’s largest networked cancer centres, are taking its world class chemotherapy service to patients’ homes.

Following the success of a pilot scheme, the cancer centre is set to deliver more cancer treatments at patients’ homes as it expands its pioneering ‘Cancer Treatment at Home’ service to Liverpool patients on Monday 28^th September.

The new service was first piloted on suitable Wirral patients receiving Herceptin (Trastuzumab) treatment (a medicine given for the treatment of Breast Cancer).

As part of this service, a highly-trained specialist chemotherapy nurse from the cancer centre delivers cancer treatments to patients, in the comfort of their own home. This service is part of the Clatterbridge in the Community programme - a chemotherapy service which offers specialist treatment away from a hospital setting.

Following its success the ‘Cancer Treatment at Home’ service has already been rolled out to suitable patients around Halton and Chester and on 28^th September will be available to suitable Liverpool patients.

A survey was carried out in May/June 2015 of 37 patients who had received their chemotherapy treatment at home and the feedback was exemplary. 100% of patient said they were very satisfied with the service and would recommend home treatment to others and 100% agreed that they were well looked after, had confidence in the nurse’s ability and felt safe receiving treatment at home.

Joan Spencer, General Manager for Chemotherapy services at The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre said: “We want to make our patients treatment journey as smooth as possible and one way of achieving this is by being able to offer suitable patients the option to have their treatment in the comfort of their own home. For some patients it can be a struggle and extra stress travelling to our clinics for treatment – we want to avoid this where possible and offer alternatives.

“The project is still in the early phases so we currently only offer this service to suitable patients receiving Herceptin (trastuzumab) treatment. In the future we are looking at offering this service to patients receiving different types of chemotherapy.”

The Clatterbridge in the Community programme has been developed in partnership with PharmaC – The Clatterbridge Pharmacy Ltd, an innovative and successful service introduced by the Trust in December 2013 to provide on-site dispensing services to the Centre’s patients.

One patient who is benefitting from the new service is 76-year-old Lilian Kenrick from Heswall. Lilian was visiting the centre for her chemotherapy treatment but for the last six months our specialist nurses have been treating her in the comfort of her own home.

She said: “If you are diagnosed with cancer you will travel anywhere to get the best treatment but to be offered a one-to-one service in your own home is truly fantastic. The service I have received is second to none - having a dedicated specialist in your home to give you your treatment and answer any questions or just have a chat makes a real difference. I would certainly recommend the service and I believe it’s definitely the way to go.”

The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre treats more than 43,000 outpatient chemotherapy treatments every year. More than 50% of these are delivered at our nurse-led clinics held in eight district hospitals across Merseyside and Cheshire, making this one of the most comprehensive networks of chemotherapy clinics in the UK.