A North East cancer charity is hoping to take its patient transport service around the country after the announcement of a new pilot scheme in Newcastle.
The Daft as a Brush Cancer Patient Care charity - founded by Geordie entrepreneur Brian Burnie - already helps with thousands of journeys to and from hospital for Newcastle's cancer patients at the RVI or the Freeman. But at a very special Twelfth Night fireworks event, Brian announced that a new trial of a more integrated service will begin in February.
The idea is that a patient's transport needs, from diagnosis to recovery, will be planned together with their treatment, and Brian hopes that the model, when perfected in Newcastle, could be expanded to help cancer patients around the country. The distinctive brightly coloured Daft as a Brush ambulances are a common sight around the city, each has been sponsored by a local primary school.
Read more: Fireworks over Gosforth as Daft as a Brush switches off a million Christmas lights for another year
At the event, Brian said the fireworks display and festive lights switch-off had come just as we have received confirmation from the Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust's chief executive's office that the trial would go ahead. Showing ChronicleLive the letter in question, he said: "[This] allows us to take the patient transport service that one giant leap forward. The NHS have been existence for 75 years and they’ve never attempted to integrate patient transport and treatment.
"We’re now going to start to introduce how the patient gets there into the treatment plan so when Mrs Cannybody first comes to the hospital, she’s told what the treatment will be and which hospital and how she’ll get there, right until she rings that bell to say she’s completed the treatment.
"It's revolutionary."
He said it was "just common sense" and that setting up a model like this in Newcastle could then prove an example for the charity to expand to treat cancer patients around the country. Brian added that the pilot could see the charity increase from doing around 60,000 journeys with patients a year, to doing more than 100,000.
Phil Powell the hospital trust's directorate Manager for Cancer Services and Clinical Haematology said: "We have worked in partnership with Daft as a Brush Cancer Patient Care a number of years so that patients receiving chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatments can travel to and from their appointments in comfort and safety, with a dedicated Daft as a Brush driver and companion.
"We are undertaking a joint venture with the charity to make sure that every patient who wishes to access the Daft as a Brush service is able to, by fully utilising the ambulance capacity available with the aim of setting up a process and structure, which will not only benefit cancer patients from our region but will also be deployable in other areas of the country."
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