Fatigue support

What is fatigue support?

Fatigue support is a telephone programme which includes 5 appointments with one of our Specialist Nurses. The first 4 telephone calls are spaced over about 10 weeks, and a further follow-up call is made a couple of months later. Each call will last between 30 and 45 minutes. The Specialist Nurse will discuss your fatigue and how you have been feeling to try and help you find some solutions.

Positive changes might be things like increasing exercise slowly and gradually, increasing enjoyable social activities, getting back into hobbies, or changing your diet slightly. The follow-up call allows us to see how you are feeling and gives you the opportunity to feedback on the impact we hope the service will have.

How do I know if I have fatigue?

Feel tired despite getting plenty of sleep?
Lacking energy?
Can’t enjoy your hobbies because you’re tired?
Struggling to cope with returning to work?

If you answered yes to any of the above, then we want to help you with our Specialist Nurse-led Fatigue support service.

What is the goal?

We want to help you make positive changes to your behaviour and lifestyle, which should improve your fatigue over time, including:

• increasing exercise slowly and gradually
• being able to have fun with your friends and family
• getting back into your hobbies
• adjusting your diet
• returning to work.

How do I get involved?

It's easy - just call our Specialist Nurses on 0800 074 8383 or fill in our form and a nurse will assess whether or not the service will suit your needs. If you are likely to benefit from this service, you can sign up right there and then. If not, the Specalist Nurses will help you find the right kind of support for you.

Please note that we are unfortunately unable to offer this service to men outside the UK.

What men tell us

I thought the service was superb, with the support nurse being so kind, understanding & thoughtful. She was at the very heart of everything and so very encouraging.

I did not think that I would be able to manage my fatigue through this programme but thought I should give it a try. Now I can see how I have benefitted considerably through the help of a structured, managed approach to improve my tiredness and build on my progress from now on.

Speaking to someone about my fatigue made me more aware of it and so I was able to work against it in a more effective way. Being told it was possible to change things also helped. It was good to have fatigue recognised as a problem that can be changed.

This service was highly commended in 2013 for The Quality in Care Oncology Awards and was shortlisted for the Nursing Times Award for cancer nursing.

Confidentiality

The Fatigue support service is confidential between you and Prostate Cancer UK. If you contact the Specialist Nurses, you may choose to provide personal information which will only be used for the purposes of the service.

Any personal information provided will not be passed on to anyone else without your express permission except in exceptional circumstance to comply with the nurses' code of professional conduct or the law. Examples of this might include children contacting the service reporting abuse, anyone reporting serious self-harm, anyone expressing the intention of harming someone else, or if a terrorist threat is reported.

Your personal information and details of the call content are stored on a secure database. Feedback you provide by completing an evaluation call after you complete the service will be stored securely and only the person responsible for evaluating the feedback will have access to this. We will ensure that no individual is identifiable from the data he provides. If for any reason you wish to have your personal details or data removed from our records, please contact the Specialist Nurses. All sensitive data will be securely stored for 2 years for statistical analysis and then securely destroyed.

Call Monitoring

Calls are recorded and monitored for training purposes. This is an important part of maintaining quality on the Fatigue support service. All calls are kept confidential to Prostate Cancer UK and are destroyed securely after use.