"Very average."

The problems began when I attended an appointment to have two biopsies taken. At the time the clinic staff suspected I had two different cancers at once and so both needed to be assessed. I was given a routine appointment and attended after two weeks. I attended the day hospital upstairs in the main building. It was very busy and I was still waiting three hours later to get the samples taken. During the fourth hour, after I had had a second blood sample taken, the sister on the ward cane into the room and told me my appointment was cancelled and that I’d have to return again in two weeks. Of course when you’re waiting for a biopsy you can’t eat, as this will influence the effects of the anaesthetic so I was very hungry, also very stressed and worries sick about these two cancers! It was thought to be in my bones and kidneys. I got up and walked out the room voicing loudly what I thought about the hospital and it’s appointments system. My family took me to the cafe and I settled for a while, and during that time my sister went back to try and get another appointment on a sooner date. She came back and apparently the appointment had been cancelled because they ‘didn’t have enough beds on the day hospital’, but not to worry, I could be seen that day and somehow they managed to find a whole empty ward, within the day hospital to accommodate me after the biopsies had been taken. This remained almost empty bar one other patient and I was only required to stay for four hours after the procedure regardless. So my impressions of the hospital and staff I’d met so far were quite poor. Next next visit I met the renal team who further discussed the results of the biopsies and it was confirmed to be primary renal cancer which had spread to the bones.

There was just some confusion because I was 36 at the time of diagnosis and it was rarely seen in someone if such a young age.

I continued to be treated by the renal team for another three years until last summer when I transferred to another Hospital which has a large cancer unit attached.

They are faced with the same challenges re patient volumes and I’d guess less funding than Christie’s but it was the right decision to move.

The hospital is far more modern, cleaner, there are two large pharmacies and not just the pokey box room of which the Boots pharmacy occupies at Christie’s, two multi storey car parks and a couple of car parks reserved for those attending the clinics. It’s much more incorporated and cancer patients aren’t excluded by being kept in their own part of the hospital, unlike Christie’s. This may be out of necessity or purely to convenience doctors and clinicians.

Clinic appointments either with the nurse or my consultant are mostly a pleasure or at least very easy and I feel listened to and respected.