Southampton team take exercise and wellbeing support for cancer patients online

Southampton’s pioneering prehabilitation team adapt their exercise, nutrition and emotional support package for cancer patients nationwide shielding or with disrupted treatment due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Cancer surgery treatments nationwide have been paused and disrupted with the emergence of coronavirus, and the NHS’s immense effort to deal with rising infections form March onwards.

That disruption, and the need to shield for those on immune system compromising chemotherapy has caused anxiety, distress and uncertainty for many who were already preparing themselves for the daunting prospect of major cancer surgery.

Professor Sandy Jack and team have responded by adapting their cancer ‘prehabilitation’ research programmes to be delivered online, nationwide in partnership with Macmillan Cancer Support and the CanRehab cancer exercise rehabilitation charity.

Better prepared

Prof Sandy Jack’s pioneering work into prehabilitation has shown that high intensity exercise improves physical fitness, psychological state, quality of life and recovery in cancer surgery patients.

The Wessex Fit for Cancer (WesFit) trial team, prior to lockdown, was looking at the positive impact of exercise, personalised nutrition and mental wellbeing advice for cancer patients awaiting surgery at University Hospital Southampton.

Funded by the NHS England Wessex Cancer Alliance, their work delivering sessions in gyms and cancer support centres across Wessex proved so successful, it was being adopted elsewhere nationally before the pandemic struck.

Moving online

SafeFit offers online exercise sessions to cancer patients, with personal trainers who are trained and accredited in appropriate, safe exercise for cancer patients by the CanRehab Trust.

The virtual service means that the support can be wider-reaching and the sessions are now available online for many more cancer patients to access through a simple self-referral application.

Those signing up gain free access to the support on offer and can contribute their experiences and data to research aimed at assessing these services as part of standard cancer care in the future.

The team plan to initially provide the service for around 1000 patients nationwide and then, if they receive sufficient funding, to expand the service to provide support for all cancer patients.

The trial, which started taking referrals at the end of May, has already had over 100 self-referrals.

Donate to SafeFit

Macmillan Cancer Support and Southampton Hospitals Charity have launched a funding campaign to enable SafeFit to continue to provide this service. Without this funding, the trial will end.

Anyone wishing to support this campaign can do so by visiting Southampton Hospitals Charity to donate directly to the SafeFit fund.