PRIMARY CARE HELP AND SUPPORT FOR PATIENTS DIAGNOSED WITH A SIGNIFICANT ILLNESS
Did you know that there are four conditions automatically protected under disability discrimination laws from the moment they are diagnosed? These are cancer, HIV infection, multiple sclerosis (MS) and registered visual impairment.
If you have been sent a link to this page, it is likely we have been told that you have one of these illnesses, if you feel this is an error, please contact the surgery and we can look into this for you.
We have created this support page to help and support you with your significant illness diagnosis.
We expect you will have had a lot of information given to you so this is just a little bit of an overview of what support we can offer that you might not know about. We usually send a text (or a letter if you don’t have a mobile) out a few weeks after being told about your diagnosis to avoid you being overloaded with information. After discussion with our PPG group, they felt that a text would be the preferred method of contact as it was though that this would be the most confidential and also to reassure you of confidentiality regarding your recent diagnosis. We also send a text or letter of support out even if we’ve been told that your illness has been successfully treated because we know both the physical and emotional effects of a significant diagnosis can last a lot longer.
Please call us to book an appointment to go through your recent diagnosis if you feel this would be helpful for you and tell our patient care co-ordinators that you would like to book a significant illness review (or a cancer review if it’s cancer you have been diagnosed with).
Other Leek and Biddulph health professionals you might not know about:
PCN Occupational Therapists: Our OTs can help with anxiety and stress related to your diagnosis – just call the practice to ask for a referral. OTs can also help if you need bits and bobs to help you around the house if you are struggling. Please ask for a referral, or see Occupational Therapists – Leek and Biddulph PCN for more information about the services they provide.
Social Prescribers: Our social prescribers can help if your diagnosis is causing problems with money troubles/ job problems/ feel you want to talk to someone else that has been down the same path as you/ loneliness and need some help to get you out of the house/ or you need any other social support. Our receptionists can refer you directly. This leaflet Social Prescribing Team – Leek and Biddulph PCN also gives you some more information about how they can help.
District nurses: These can help if you need any nursing care at home eg any dressing that need changing, catheter care, special medicines that need administering eg injectable blood thinners after an operation.
There are lots of other professionals and organisations that can help you too, so if you are struggling in any way, please book an appointment with either Kathy or Dr Soma (or any of our normal healthcare team if we aren’t in) and we’ll do our very best to help.
For those diagnosed with cancer, did you know we have a cancer team in our practice?
| Amy Donnelly Cancer Champion | Kathryn Tinsley APP Cancer Care Advanced Practitioner | Dr Glen Somayajula Cancer Clinical Lead |
| Works hard behind the scenes from an admin side, and helps improve our cancer care | Does most of our cancer care reviews and liaises with other healthcare professionals | Helps with more complex cases/ problems and leads on cancer care |
Just so you know: Once you have been diagnosed with cancer, you can access general cancer support and advice from Macmillian (just call 0808 00 00 or see www.macmillian.org.uk) but THIS IS NOT THE SAME AS our local hospice team Dougie Mac (who used to be called Douglas Macmillan) who provide palliative (non-curable) care support only. It’s a bit confusing locally so we thought we would clear this up for you.
We’re also happy to listen to any feedback on how we can improve our care for cancer patients – please let any of our cancer team know if you have any suggestions.
We will also follow up this letter with a telephone call in due course to see if you would like the opportunity to go through your journey so far and see if there are other ways we could help you. We call this a cancer care review. You can have this either over the telephone, via a video consultation, in the practice or in your home. You can also contact us any time before this to discuss your cancer care or any other problems.