The Sussex Cancer Fund has been supporting the Psychological Therapies Team for some years, so we asked Laura Pritchard, Macmillan Lead for Psychological Therapies about the services they provide and how the Sussex Cancer Fund Supports them.
Support for the Macmillan Psychological Therapies Team from the Sussex Cancer Fund
“We’d like to say a huge thank you to the SCF who have been supporting the Macmillan Psychological therapies team for several years now. The Macmillan Psychological therapies team provide a confidential counselling, psychotherapy & hypnotherapy service to patients and immediate family members who are currently receiving or have had treatment at the Sussex Cancer Centre in the last 6 months. The team is managed by Laura Pritchard –as lead Psychotherapist with 18 dedicated volunteer counsellors, psychotherapists, psychologist & hypnotherapists. We offer one to one and couples counselling and run groups including the HOPE ( Help Overcome Problems Effectively) course and mindfulness courses. We are frequently told how beneficial the service is in helping people to cope with treatment and the emotional impact of cancer.
In order to meet with best practise guidelines, all therapists have supervision with a qualified external supervisor which for several years has been paid for by the SCF. This supervision is mandatory for this profession and helps us provide a high-quality service.
Recently during the Covid 19 outbreak, we (the Psychological Therapies Team) have had to adapt the way we work to be able to safely provide the service via telephone and video consultations and continue to support patients and families in this, particularly anxious making time. Several of the psychological therapies team have volunteered to work extra hours and provide support to cancer services staff too. When we (the Psychological Therapies Team) are able to we will resume face to face appointments in the Sussex Cancer Centre, Horizon Centre and at Princess Royal Hospital.”
The Sussex Cancer Fund has been delighted to support such a fantastic and much-needed service, if you would like to help us continue to support more projects like this please donate if you can.
We would also like to add that the BSUH Trust has very clear covid and non-covid areas throughout the hospital including the emergency department. The hospital is still open for patients needing emergency care and steps have been taken in the hospital to provide safe care and treatment for non-covid patients.
