Category: Uncategorized (Page 3 of 5)

This conversation is fictitious. But free of alternative facts.

‘North Cardiff doesn’t know it. Cancer patients don’t know it. Many cancer clinicians throughout Wales don’t know it. Even you, a rookie reporter, don’t know it. ‘

‘Uh? Know what’?

‘How the New Velindre Cancer Centre became destined for a strange location. We should run the story at the weekend. People just don’t know that the Government, around 2015, instructed the Velindre Board to build its new Cancer Centre on a ‘stand-alone’ site. You know, not at a big hospital (1).’

We’ve described the emergency ambulance transfers of critically ill patients from Velindre to better equipped hospitals previously on this site .

https://colocate-velindre.co.uk/are-ambulance-pressures-putting-velindre-emergency-transfers-at-risk/.

Two patients a week from only forty beds and one junior doctor on the premises out of hours.

But there are many other transfers every week between Velindre and larger hospitals. Some are patients from Velindre needing investigations that are available as a matter of course in Cancer Centres colocated with acute hospitals. Others carry patients with cancer who are too sick to be looked after in Velindre from their acute hospital beds to Velindre for radiotherapy. 

Anyone who has travelled by ambulance will recognise the discomfort, anxiety and fatigue that result. These transfers would be unnecessary if Velindre was co-located on an acute hospital site. 

What you should know if you are to be treated at the current or future Velindre Cancer Centre.

Anaphylaxis is a severe, potentially life-threatening allergic reaction.

It can occur within seconds or minutes of exposure to something you’re allergic to- such as peanuts, bee stings…or chemotherapy given in Cancer Centres like Velindre.

The Resuscitation Council UK issues and updates guidelines for the treatment of anaphylaxis. Here are the most recent guidelines, from 2021.

Hint: it’s not Velindre

We’d all like a world class cancer hospital in Cardiff. Wouldn’t we? Well, guess what, we’ve already got one.

But its not Velindre

Here at co-locate Velindre we are keen to hear your thoughts and views. on the location and structure of cancer services in South East Wales.

To make this easier, we’ve devised a quick survey which is completely anonymous.

The survey is for anybody, not just those who agree with us, although we would ask for civility in responses.

It’s fun, its easy to fill in, and it seems to be pretty popular: over 100 responses in the first 20 hours. But of course we’re greedy and we’d like more!

you can find the survey here:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Q6TM7FR

Thanks for all your feedback!

Today the opposition showed its true colours with a declaration of intent to start work to development of the New Velindre. This despite their many failures: to get planning permission, to discuss their work with local residents, to await the formal legal position with the Judicial Review not being heard until next month and finally, their failure to discuss the issues we have raised on this website in any way, shape or form.

And yet…

Local residents managed to raise tangible objections to the planned works presented so shoddily and inaccurately. They put off the contractors from carrying out their intended works on the day, and raised public consciousness about the aim of getting New Velindre leadership to consider colocation.

The ITV news coverage included coherent factual interviews with some protesters who clearly have a proper understanding of the medical issues, along with the environmental concerns that also have.

We’ve reproduced this comparison chart kindly provided by the Save the Northern Meadows Campaign to demonstrate again the folly that the New Velindre Cancer Centre will be.

UHW, Velindre, Welsh Cancer Research and Questions…

Why has the projected new University Hospital of Wales disappeared from public view for more than half a year?  Can the well-publicised vision for the new UHW really be stalled already? And wouldn’t a general, acute and teaching hospital (UHW2) bring hope to many times more cancer patients than even the planned New Velindre Cancer Centre would? 

If so…

What could have put such an important project as UHW2 on pause? Is Welsh Government really mothballing the programme while heaping funding on a stand-alone New Velindre project that can only yield an outpatients’ cancer unit?

Or should we buy into the speculations going about that UHW2 is just another casualty of post-Covid austerity? A natural surmise, but then how could half a billion pounds (likely much more) still be heading towards New Velindre, with millions already pouring down on its troubled enabling project? Why this seeming extravagance for a (much needed) new radiotherapy centre but stinginess with the urgency for a major, replacement research and teaching hospital?

We’ve seen a lot in the media in the last couple of days about patients being transferred between hospitals in Wales.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-58999131https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-58967159

Yesterday’s blog drew the uncanny parallels between the sorry situation now affecting patients in the Grange Hospital, and the much less well publicised reliance on ambulance transport for patients in Velindre.

https://colocate-velindre.co.uk/what-can-we-learn-from-the-grange-experience/

Velindre relies on ambulance transport for patients needing investigations and treatments they can’t provide on their Whitchurch site. This includes an average of two emergency transfers per week for the very sickest patients. Even before the recent pressures on the ambulance service, emergency transfers from Velindre to UHW could take up to six hours.

We’d like to hear from you

We know that patients receive excellent care from the clinical team in Velindre, and we appreciate all that they do. But some patients will need care from a bigger hospital. It’s not always possible to predict who will need this. If you, or a relative, has experienced a transfer from Velindre to another hospital, in an emergency or just for routine tests and treatment, we’d like to hear your experience. Tell us the good as well as the bad! You can contact us in confidence at colocatevelindre@gmail.com

‘Trainee doctors too scared to come to work’

That is the headline of a damning news story by the BBC’s Welsh Health Correspondent. The story describes a report by the Royal College of Physicians following a visit to the newly opened Grange Hospital in Cwmbran. You can read the story here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-58967159 .

Junior doctors described facing numerous problems trying to make the Health Board’s model of care work. Many of the problems sound eerily similar to those we can expect to see with the New Velindre Cancer Centre.

We would like to make clear our gratitude to all Velindre’s staff, and we want everyone to be absolutely clear that we support these key workers and the service they provide. 

We make many criticisms of ‘Velindre’ in our blogs, and we want to emphasise that these criticisms are NOT directed at frontline staff. 

Our scientifically validated criticism is directed solely at the inner groupthink team that has advanced a calamitous project for cancer care in South East Wales. Those who are driving forward the development of a new, stand-alone Cancer Centre on a site several miles from an acute hospital. We call these people ‘New Velindre leaders’.

We are aware of accusations that we are in some way ‘anti-cancer treatment’, ‘nimby’ or ‘unsupportive’, and we have written this especially to refute these views. 

We emphasise again our huge gratitude to the staff for the care they provide at the existing Velindre.

Let’s not forget fantastic NHS Staff

At this time of austerity, uncertainty and challenge, it’s easy to overlook those who turn up daily and keep the world ticking over. Alarmist news headlines come and go- we may be relying on the army to drive ambulances. But let’s remember the hundreds of paramedics and ambulance drivers who turn up every day and go over and above each shift. They forgo breaks, finish late and often sit outside hospitals in a van, waiting. NOT doing the job they trained to do. NOT doing what gives them purpose in their work.

It isn’t just the ambulance service

Elective surgery is experiencing unparalleled delay, but let’s not forget the teams who continue to do the best for patients in this taxing environment- dealing with emergencies and fighting with their organisations to admit patients for interventions.

Intensive Care Units are full. Doctors are covering nursing shifts.

Critically ill patients may be transferred between sites to accommodate demand across networks. But people are doing their best.

We are pleased to announce that Co-locate Velindre is now also on Twitter. We’re providing comment and scrutiny around the issues of co-located vs stand- alone cancer centres.

‘passionate about world class care in the safest location. Truth, evidence, transparency, engagement, quality, safety.’

follow us on @colvelindre