About us
We bring cancer care closer to NHS patients
Hope for Tomorrow builds and provides mobile cancer care units for NHS trusts across England to allow them to treat cancer patients closer to where they live. The units allow the NHS to drive out to patients, saving them long, regular, and often disruptive journeys, to hospital for their cancer treatment.
With close to 70% of patients saying that they can tolerate their treatment better on a mobile cancer care unit and over half saying that it improved their chances of completing their full course of treatment, you can see how, with your support, we can really make a difference.
We bring cancer care closer to NHS patients
Hope for Tomorrow builds and provides mobile cancer care units for NHS trusts across England to allow them to treat cancer patients closer to where they live. The units allow the NHS to drive out to patients, saving them long, regular, and often disruptive journeys, to hospital for their cancer treatment.
With close to 70% of patients saying that they can tolerate their treatment better on a mobile cancer care unit and over half saying that it improved their chances of completing their full course of treatment, you can see how, with your support, we can really make a difference.
About mobile cancer care
Our mobile cancer care units help patients fit their treatment into their lives, rather than having to fit their lives around their treatment.
We make this happen by raising the funds and then building the units for NHS trusts, allowing them to treat cancer patients in their local communities so that they don’t have to make regular trips to hospital. We provide the units, and the NHS nursing teams deliver the care.
The units and nursing teams drive out to locations such as community hospitals or supermarket car parks and can treat over 20 patients a day. As you’d expect, they receive the same exceptional care that they would in hospital but with extra benefits.
As they don’t need to make long trips to the hospital they save time, travel costs and parking fees. At the hospital they may have long walks or experience long waits when they arrive for their appointments, but on a unit there is no waiting.
Better still, being treated locally with other local patients often builds a sense of togetherness and community on the units, resulting in a relaxed and friendly treatment environment.
What’s it like to be treated on a unit?
Inside, the mobile cancer care units are just like hospital treatment rooms, with treatment chairs, chemotherapy pump stands, and medical storage facilities. They are equipped with air conditioning and a cooling and heating system for patient comfort, as well as a toilet and kitchen.
The drivers of the units welcome patients on board, with a cup of tea or coffee, and two NHS nurses provide them with the great care you’d expect from NHS teams, resulting in patients speaking highly of their treatment experiences. They tell us how wonderful it is to be able to spend time talking to the nurses, to share stories and to build special friendships with other cancer patients who live locally to them.
Patients often talk about getting their independence back as they don’t need to rely on others to take them to hospital, while others refer to how the time savings of visiting a unit allow them to fit their treatment around their working lives, as they don’t need to take hours out of their day.
The benefits of a mobile cancer care unit…
For patients:
- Shorter journeys –patients save 18.8 miles of travel per treatment*
- More time to do other things– patients save 2.6 hours of time per treatment*
- Reduced costs – patients save £6.40 on travel and parking costs per treatment*
- Easy access – no need to walk through the hospital to get to the ward
- No waiting – patients are treated promptly as there are no delays from triage cases which may occur in hospital
- Feeling less vulnerable – patients feel safer, especially post Covid, as they do not have to mix with the number of people they would have to if they went to hospital
- Independence – shorter and briefer trips mean that they don’t have to rely so much on others
- A sense of community – receiving regular treatment with fellow local patients allows patients to get to know each other
*average figures based on patient questionnaires
For the NHS:
Feedback from our NHS partners shows:
- The units increase capacity, so can help with waiting lists
- They free up space in hospital to treat more complex cases
- As they are used all day for the provision of cancer treatment, they provide an ideal environment for staff training
- Nurses get to know their patients as they see them regularly, improving job satisfaction
- Improved job retention, as nurses enjoy the variety of working in hospital and on the unit
- The patients share experiences of their treatment
The sense of caring shines through
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