A team at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is working on an exciting project to ensure that patients across the whole of Lancashire and south Cumbria have access to high quality, innovative electronic information about their cancer treatment.
The corporate cancer team at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals is working with the Lancashire and south Cumbria Cancer Alliance to create eBooks for patients and their loved ones to enable them to access more information and advice about their cancer treatment.
The project was originally started by the gynaecological oncology team at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals, and received very positive feedback from patients, so is now being expanded upon to suit a larger range of needs and a wider patient group.
The Lancashire and south Cumbria Cancer Alliance is funding the project and the aim is to build upon this success and roll out eBooks for breast, colorectal, and prostate cancers across the Lancashire and south Cumbria area, with the capability to create bespoke content according to each locality.
The eBooks will not only provide patients and their loved ones with detailed written information about their recommended treatment, but will also be enhanced by multimedia benefits such as 3D anatomical and surgical animations, patient experience videos, voiceover language options, and local team and hospital photos. There will also be a dedicated health and wellbeing eBook to help signpost people who are living with and beyond cancer to appropriate services around various issues including returning to work, holistic care, benefits advice, and support groups.
It is intended that the eBooks will be available to download for free on to Apple and Android devices.
Anne Tomlinson, Lead Cancer Nurse at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals and Lead Nurse for the Cancer Alliance said: “We are really pleased to be rolling out these eBooks to improve the information that our patients have access to. This multimedia approach is novel and enhances existing information provided via consultations and written leaflets. It complements rather than replaces traditional information.”