Staff Comments

Endorsement from University College London Hospital

Treating the whole person, not only their cancer is central to the way services will be provided in the UCH Macmillan Cancer Centre when it opens in  April 2011 . This will be very welcome news to Angie Buxton-King who, as complementary therapy team manager, can be largely credited for introducing the current provision of complementary therapies available to cancer patients at the Rosenheim and UCH.   

"Angie's behind the scenes work - attracting funding, setting up tools to measure patient satisfaction and developing policies so that therapists work to the same, consistently high standards - has laid the foundations for complementary therapy to become fully integrated into cancer care" said Martin Lerner, divisional manger for cancer services.  "Our long term aim is to offer complementary services as part of the care pathway for all cancer patients who would like to receive them"

Patients like Dr Anil Wijetunge consistently give good feedback but to demonstrate how complementary therapies can benefit cancer patients, Angie and her team worked with the haematology nursing research team to design a clinical trial to examine the effects of Reiki on patient quality of life.  This groundbreaking randomised controlled trial will attempt to recruit more than 100 patients over the next two years.

Angie and husband Graham - a reiki practitioner - leave UCLH with a lasting legacy. In 2006 they created ‘The Sam Buxton Sunflower Healing Trust' charity in memory of Angie's son Sam.  The Trust has donated over £100k towards the UCLH complementary therapy team and funds five other projects at cancer centres in the UK. Through the Trust, Angie and Graham will continue to be strong advocates for integrating complementary therapies into healthcare.

Professor Anthony Goldstone

Professor of Haematology & Director of Cancer Services NLCN
Today, the approach to cancer care has shifted appropriately to a much more holistic one. The needs of the whole patient in the assessment of the needs for therapy and palliation are becoming evermore prominent and appropriately so. Complementary therapy which includes aromatherapy, counselling, healing, hypnotherapy, massage, reiki and reflexology is clearly being shown to be vastly appreciated by many cancer patients. In haematology where treatments for leukaemia and lymphoma including transplantation means that many patients are in hospitals for weeks or even months, the need for supportive complementary therapy and its effectiveness in patients is very strong indeed. Today we are also entering the era where appropriate scientific studies of complementary therapy will begin to show specific improvements in outcome for some patients. 

The UCH Trust has had a strong interest for some years already in complementary therapy for its patients within cancer care. Much of this resource has had to be achieved through stakeholder, patient and relative donation and by the raising of sums through charitable funds. It is unlikely that this situation will change radically in the short term. We believe that support for this kind of therapy, outside what the NHS is able to do, will make an enormous difference to the quality of life for many patients.

Stephen Rowley RGN RSCN BSc (Hons) MSc

Lead Cancer Nurse at UCLH
Make no mistake; whilst more intensive and longer lasting cancer treatments improve cancer survival rates, chemotherapy and radiotherapy still have the potential to grossly debilitate patients physically and mentally. The challenge for us is to better support patients during their cancer journey. Nowadays, we have never been as well armed or informed to counter the negative side-effects of cancer treatments by using the positive effects of complementary therapies alongside conventional medicine. It’s a perfect combination. We are striving towards providing this model of care to all our cancer patients rather than to just a few – and to pave the road towards making the UCH model a NHS standard. 

Consultant Oncologist Dr Maria Michelagnoli Patron

I am a paediatric and adolescent oncologist at the University College Hospital.  We have been privileged to have a team of healers working alongside ourselves for the past number of years.  In fact, the team have become integral members of our paediatric and adolescent multidisciplinary teams.

They have provided complementary roles in many circumstances including troubled/anxious children and young people and their families, are supportive of those chronically unwell and have been utilised for specific difficulties such as needle-phobia.  In addition, they have provided important staff support; the roles are varied and dependent on the preferences of families and children.

In particular, we found no conflict of interest with ‘spiritual healing' proffered by religious groups.  It is hard to imagine how the service would function without the support and dedication of our particular team.I can't recommend enough the value of this resource within the service.