Sam Smith
Teenage Cancer Trust’s Head of Nursing and Clinical Services
Teenage Cancer Trust has a unique partnership with the NHS. We work together to embed our vital services within theirs, complementing and significantly extending the care and support young people with cancer receive.
Teenage Cancer Trust units
We fund 28 specialist units for young people with cancer in NHS hospitals, providing everything they need to feel comfortable in hospital. Without our wards, young people with cancer can be treated alongside children or elderly patients, isolating them when they most need support and care that’s specific to their age group. They might be treated by cancer specialists who have no experience of working with young people. They also might never meet another person with cancer their own age, and can feel frightened and alone.
Experts in cancer care
Teenage Cancer Trust Nurses and Youth Support Coordinators work within our units alongside NHS staff. Our nurses provide tailored, individual care and the best possible support and information whenever it’s needed. Our Youth Support Coordinators arrange activities to get young people out of bed and keep them interacting with each other and their families and lives outside hospital.
Bringing young people together
Our units allow young people with cancer to receive expert treatment in the same place so they can meet and spend time with each other. The units’ bright social spaces are packed with things to do like gaming, wifi, pool tables and jukeboxes. The support patient’s give each other is incredibly powerful in helping them through their cancer experience.
We also provide a range of additional support activities. This includes music workshops at our Royal Albert Hall shows and our annual conference, Find Your Sense of Tumour, where over 200 young people meet to share experiences.
Raising awareness
Teenage Cancer Trust’s Education team deliver cancer awareness sessions in schools and colleges across the UK. These upbeat, interactive sessions teach students the five most common signs of cancer in young people and encourage them to be persistent with their doctor if their health issues are not being resolved.
We need your support
For every young person we support, there is another we cannot. That’s why we’ve launched a new Nursing & Support Service, broadening our partnership with the NHS and providing nursing outreach to young patients who aren’t able to have their treatment within our units. This service will bring us much closer to our goal of supporting every young person with cancer in this country.
