Mid Trent Cancer Network - Information for you (i4u)

The Mid Trent Cancer Network, based at Nottingham's hospitals, is one of just four cancer networks in the country to take part in a national trial of information prescriptions to help patients in the fight against cancer.

The new information prescriptions are designed to help patients regain control of their lives following a diagnosis of cancer, by ensuring they have the right information, in the right way, at the right time to enable them to make informed decisions about their treatment and the issues affecting them and their families.

Each prescription is tailored to meet the needs of every individual patient at that moment in time and is added to and expanded as the patient's treatment progresses. The prescriptions ensure all the information a patient will need is kept together in one place and can be taken from hospital clinic, to GP appointment and shared - at the discretion of the patient - with other support agencies and with friends, carers and family.

Information prescriptions are offered to patients at the time of diagnosis by their nurse specialist and contain information about their key workers - their consultants name and contact details, the name and contact number of their lead nurse and any other health professional involved in their care. Prescriptions also contain useful web addresses and local support group details together with information on such issues as treatment options, medicines and even employment law, social security benefits and travel insurance.

During the first 12 months 530 information prescriptions were handed out to patients with head and neck cancers, lung cancer, gynaecological cancers and colorectal cancer from across Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire.

Patients worked alongside health professionals to help develop the format of the prescriptions and it was following comments from patients and carers that diagrams were added and stickers produced to help patients understand by use of pictures, where their tumours were developing and how this was affecting their body and the way it functioned.

Following the success of the pilot project, the Mid Trent Cancer Network now plan to roll-out the information prescriptions to patients with other cancers and to promote the concept within the wider health community.

Glenys Shaw (65) from Norwell, near Newark, was diagnosed with breast cancer 13 years ago and finally discharged in September 2007. She said: "The information prescriptions are a fantastic idea and will help many cancer patients get through their ordeal.

"I helped to develop the prescriptions and although it was a lot of hard work I am delighted with the results.

"Dealing with cancer is a very traumatic thing and although the doctors and nurses do their best to talk to you during your appointments, it is very hard to take it all in because of the emotions involved. The prescriptions will ensure that patients have a written record of what is said, which they can take away with them and which can be added to at every appointment - whether in hospital or GP surgery. You can even take them on holiday with you as a written record in case you need medical attention when travelling abroad."

Elaine Wilson, Network Nurse Director, said: "Information prescriptions have been more successful than even I could have imagined. They have helped health professionals to consider the type and timing of information provided to patients with cancer and to re-think some of our existing practices. The quality of information provided from one organisation to another is very different and the new prescriptions have helped to build on the best to ensure a greater consistency of information for patients.

"A diagnosis of cancer is very frightening for patients and their families and they are often unable to understand what is said to them in clinic. The information prescriptions provide a wealth of information all in one place which they can take away with them and share as appropriate. The prescriptions have really empowered patients to make informed choices about their care and to feel more in control during a very difficult time.