Wessex Cancer Alliance and University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust’s pioneering trial WesFit; has been awarded the Cancer Care Initiative of the Year at the HSJ Value Awards 2020.
This year’s judging process followed a different format due to the coronavirus pandemic. Finalists were asked to create a video presentation to submit for review by the judging panel, which is formed of a wide range of well-respected figures from across the UK healthcare community. WesFit has been awarded this prestigious award in recognition of the outstanding contribution to delivering better services and driving better outcomes across their organisations over the past 12 months.
The initiative, which has now completed seven clinical trials over 12 years is a pre cancer surgery exercise programme, designed to improve the patient’s physical fitness before they have their surgery. Clinically robust evidence has proven that the less physically fit a person is before cancer surgery, the higher their risk of poorer outcomes and morbidity. If you had chemo and surgery – then you had 50% more chance of mortality at 12 months.
WesFit was developed to reverse this impact of treatment and surgery, offering a minimum 2 weeks and a maximum 15 week tailored programme. The personalised training that WesFit develops and plans for a patient, not only leads to better outcomes, reduced length of stay post-surgery and lower risk of complications, but the trial has also shown that by improving your physical and emotional wellbeing, a tumour can be downgraded in just 14 weeks.
On being awarded this accolade, WesFit’s lead Professor, Sandy Jack from University Hospital Southampton comments, “We are absolutely delighted to have been named as the winners in the cancer care initiative of the year category. It means a great deal to all our staff to be recognised in this way and we’re confident that the positive impact of this award will help to create a long-lasting legacy. This award will provide a tremendous boost to both staff and patients on the WesFit programme and I am sure it will bolster our efforts to develop and continually improve our services.”
The editor of the Health Service Journal, Alastair McLellan, offered his congratulations to the teams on their success: “The entrants this year have been of incredible calibre, and each of the winners at the HSJ Value Awards 2020 have been chosen based on their outstanding commitment to delivering value and efficiency across their organisation, I’d like to offer my congratulations to Wessex Cancer Alliance and University Hospital Southampton FT on winning the Cancer Care Initiative at this year’s HSJ Value Awards.”
Winners were announced on the HSJ Awards Twitter to their 7,000+ followers on Friday 4 September. You can view the tweets from across the day by visiting @HSJ_Awards twitter or searching for #HSJValue.
For more information on the HSJ Value Awards visit: https://value.hsj.co.uk/
