Help for dealing with cancer

Date published: 05 February 2010

Heywood, Middleton and Rochdale Community Healthcare has developed a handbook to help patients that have cancer along their journey.

The Cancer Handbook is a new guide to local services and information that can help someone who has cancer. It covers every aspect of the cancer journey from diagnosis, the range of health professional and specialists you may encounter, local support groups, getting help with costs and benefits and bereavement support.

Jancie Sedgwick, Lead Cancer and Palliative Care Nurse, said: “After speaking with patients who have been through the cancer journey, they told us that it would be useful to have a handbook that includes all of the information they need on one place. The Cancer Handbook has been developed with patients, carers, families and friends in mind. Facing cancer is a very difficult time, with lots of information to take in, so we hope that the handbook will act as a useful guide that is easy to understand.”

The Cancer Handbook can be downloaded from www.hmr.nhs.uk - copies will also be made available at support centres around the borough or by calling 0161 655 1336.