Alison Woods
When the oncology cupboard is bare: the challenge of helping patients with rare cancers
Nurse specialist Alison Woods offers advice on supporting patients and easing their anxieties
End of life care: my experience as a nurse and daughter
Nurse Alison Woods describes her contrasting emotions during her mum's final days
The experience of mastectomy patients on the 23-hour pathway
Aim To explore the experiences of women with breast cancer undergoing a mastectomy and discharge from hospital within 23 hours of their stay. Method A qualitative phenomenological hermeneutic approach using semi-structured interviews. A purposive sample of ten women were recruited from the breast unit in a single centre over five months identified by the breast care team. Findings Six patients discharged within 23 hours had a positive experience of the pathway. However, four did not complete the pathway and had a negative experience. Main themes were initial reactions to the 23-hour pathway, surgery and inpatient experiences, experiences across the whole pathway, coping and the effect of the support network. Conclusion Although the 23-hour pathway is safe and effective it may not meet the individual needs of all patients and does not offer a person-centred care approach. It may be possible to identify patients prospectively who are likely to have a negative experience and target support or amend the pathway to improve their experience.
access to community services for black and minority ethnic groups: increasing staff...
The Valuing People White Paper identified that ‘services and support to people with learning disabilities from minority ethnic communities are failing to meet the needs of individuals and their families’ (Department of Health (DH) 2001a). This was developed in an accompanying report (DH 2001b), which stated that ‘minority ethnic communities face substantial inequalities and discrimination in employment, education, health and social services’; and that ‘people with learning difficulties from minority ethnic communities experience simultaneous disadvantage in relation to race, impairment and, for women, gender.’