Meet Northamptonshire Healthcare Foundation Trust
The Prostate Cancer Nurse will be employed and managed through the Northamptonshire Healthcare Foundation Trust (NHFT) and based at the Cynthia Spencer Hospice as part of the Specialist Palliative Care Service (SPCS). The post will be match funded by PROSTaid. There are twelve full time palliative care nurses within the SPCS who were originally Macmillan funded to work with patients with all conditions; these are primarily different cancers.
PROSTaid is a local prostate cancer charity founded in 2004 that covers the counties of Leicestershire, Rutland and Northamptonshire. The charity offers local support, information, befriending and awareness of prostate cancer. They also raise funds for new treatment equipment for local hospitals. They currently fund two prostate cancer specialist nurses, one at the point of diagnosis and one working in the community providing palliative care for local men with advanced prostate cancer in Leicestershire. The Leicestershire post provides the model for this post.
The Cynthia Spencer Hospice is a purpose-built 20-bedded unit, managed by the Northamptonshire Teaching Primary Care Trust providing hospice and palliative care services for south Northamptonshire. The Hospice currently serves a population in excess of 300,000 people and admits approximately 400 in-patients each year.
The Cransley Hospice in Kettering also provides hospice and palliative care services for the population of north Northamptonshire. Approximately 90 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer each year. A small number of these will require hospice services but all will have input from NHFT Community teams.