"Chemo day unit delay"

I’m having beacop-dac  chemo for Hodgkin’s lymphoma at the Notts City haem day unit. There have been delays due to my chemo not being ready on about 40-50% of chemo days through my treatment. This has often meant my day is several hours longer than it needs to be ....when my treatment takes five/six hours at a time this makes the day really long and also lands me in rush hour to come home. I don’t really understand why it happens so often or why if it’s clear there will be a big delay why I’m not phoned to tell me to come later, either the day before or in the morning. It’s really frustrating and makes me dread coming in as it’s impossible to know how long it will take. 

It’s surely not that difficult to plan what drugs need to be ready when chemo cycles are very predictable. I’m being treated with intent of cure and hate the time wasting but for patients who have a life limiting illness, they shouldn’t be wasting their precious time in hospital waiting on chemo being ready. It’s really annoying. It can’t just be my drugs that are late.

When I’m not being a cancer patient I work in the NHS and in my time have done a lot of QI work. I also therefore know a lot about why delays happen in general , and am sure people are trying hard etc but this just could be better . I think this would be a really good quality improvement project for a trainee doctor to look at. It would really benefit patients, make our lives easier, and increase efficiency. If I was working it’s the sort of project I would love to do. 

The day unit staff are absolutely lovely and I’m very grateful for the overall excellent care I have recieved throughtout my treatment- but there is an opportunity here to make things even better.