In 2022 the Right by You Wessex project sites have grown from strength to strength.
In total, the 2 sites in Southampton City and Portland have received 209 referrals as well as offering home visits and other contacts to deliver complex and comprehensive personalised care interventions with people, their families/personal support networks and with other professionals involved in their care.
Right by You provides an alternate model for cancer supportive care, taking cancer specialist nurses and cancer support workers out of hospital settings and placing them in local communities, enabling them to provide support to people with cancer where and when people choose. This opens up the offer of specialist, in-person support to wider family members; supporting people as a family unit in the home environment or place they select and helping to better understand them, their lives and the things that matter to them. You can read more about this work, why it is so important and what we are learning to date here in this Right by You Interim project report.
A range of different posters outline some areas we are looking at within the Right by You project:
- Right By You, Portland
- Co-designing a template Personalised Care Plan
- The role of Specialist Advisor
This is what the team feels are some of their main achievements this year:
“RbY has achieved phenomenal personalised care for patients in their own homes liasing with secondary and primary care, community and charity funded services.
I feel proud when referring people that I am a tiny part of it. I am constantly learning from all of the team and value their support for both myself and the people with cancer registered at The Old Fire Station Surgery”
“I am proud of the difference RbY makes to people and their families at any point in their pathway. Changing the balance that lets them lead with what matters to them”
“I feel proud of the high level of support we are able to offer to families/carers of people with cancer. This has been through curative treatments, palliative end of life support and in also bereavement. This is not able to happen in hospital settings”
This is what others say about this benefits of RbY:
“As ever we left feeling supported and our footsteps are a little lighter. If you ever ask yourselves “do we make a difference” hold your heads high and with total confidence reply “yes, we really do”
“I was so worried about all of it and she [RbY staff member] sort of put my mind at rest. She was so good, I don’t know what if she hadn’t come, you can’t get to see the doctor, they don’t want to know. You can’t keep phoning the hospital because they don’t really want to know”
Delivery of bespoke support:
‘[RbY team member] has the background knowledge of all of those agencies that are out there and [she does] a lot of creative thinking to mould what’s out there to our clients .… individuals that don’t quite fit the usual patient.’
Use of services:
“One patient coming into hospital on a weekly basis – as soon as RbY were involved, he stopped coming back”
Mentorship/Building expertise in primary care:
‘[RbY team member] came and worked a shift and observed what I do in a normal day … and then she was with me at the very beginning when I was making phone calls, not really knowing how to introduce myself, and it just helped me gain confidence really, yes it was very helpful.’
Thank you to everyone on the Right By You project team and to all the health professionals and lived experience representatives that work alongside us to support this project and to support people with cancer and their families.
