The film we are highlighting today from our Older People’s Cancer Voices project has a call to action for health and care professionals – your local Cancer, Older People and Advocacy project needs you to refer older people affected by cancer.
We wanted to use this film to highlight both the strong outcomes of independent advocacy support for older people affected by cancer, but also the benefits to health and care professionals, both in terms of cost effectiveness and saving time, but also in strengthening service provision and therefore improving experiences for older people affected by cancer.
Our programme steering groups, cancer champions and the health professionals that we have strong working relationships with tell us that trust is a key issue for professionals making referrals outside the boundaries of their own services. Having trust in that referral, knowing the organisation you are referring to is a high quality service and will deliver strong patient centred outcomes, these are understandable barriers to referring into an independent advocacy service if you haven’t experienced these services before. We hope this film brings to life for health professionals what they, and their patient or the carer they are supporting can expect from a professionally led volunteer peer advocacy service, supported by experiences of the health and care professionals who already do make referrals:
We hope this film leaves you wanting to start a conversation with your local Cancer, Older People and Advocacy partner project, see the About Us page for details, we’re back tomorrow with a film aimed at commissioners.
Ang Broadbridge, OPAAL
Older People Living with Cancer 