During treatment

Dr Catherine Oakley: Hello, my name's Dr Catherine Oakley, and I'm the chemotherapy nurse consultant here at Guy's Cancer Centre.

Today we're going to take you on a virtual tour of the chemotherapy village. This will give you an opportunity to see where you'll have your treatments.

We'll take you to the treatment areas and the rest areas. During the tour, there will also be an opportunity to see our acute oncology service.

The acute oncology team will be there for you should you become unwell at any point during your treatment. I really hope you find this tour useful. Now let's go into the Cancer Centre.

Lucy: Hi my name is Lucy I'm one of the chemotherapy nurses.

Helen: Hi my name's Helen, I'm also one of the chemotherapy nurses.

When you first arrive for your treatment here at the Cancer Centre, we'll ask you to check into one of these machines, one of these kiosks.

You'll be asked to put your patient details into the machine and then following on from that, your name will appear on one of the call forward boards.

There's a board just over there. When your name appears on that board we'll then ask you to make your way up to the Chemotherapy Village which is on level C.

If you have any problems when you arrive we'll ask you to just speak to one of the volunteers - they'll be wearing a green tabard and they'll be able to direct you to the right place.

We'll now make our way over to the lifts which are on the far right-hand side and go up to the Chemotherapy Village.

Lucy: So there's just one button for up and three lifts, so you can keep an eye out for which lift is going to come first. It should make a little noise whenever it's ready to go.

In the lifts we're going to press the button C for Chemotherapy.

When you come out of the lifts, you'll be facing reception in the chemotherapy village and you'll then be able to give your details to one of the reception staff who will give you an armband and tell you which zone you're going to be treated in.

There are three treating areas, two on this level and one on the level above, which you can get to just from these lifts or by taking the stairs.

There's a seating area outside each area, with chairs, and there's also toilets in the seating area and a drinks bay as well.

There are laptops that are free to use with the internet, and in the drinks bay there's tea, coffee, hot chocolate, hot water, cold water, biscuits, occasionally a sandwich.

We're going to take you into one of the suites, so you can see where you'll be having your treatment. So you just push through these doors and you can see our chairs.

We have 12 chairs in each area and there are six in each zone. So you get to sit on the lovely purple chairs. 

They have a controller here where the head goes back, the feet go up, you can be nice and relaxed. There's also a heating option so you can stay warm in the winter.

These are your drip stands, so you'll be connected to your treatment through it, and they make sure that your treatment goes through at the right rate.

If you ever need to go to the bathroom or go for a walk while you're on your treatment, they're just plugged into normal plugs in the wall, you can just unplug them and take them for a walk with you. They're on wheels so they move pretty easily.

You've also got a chair beside you which is for a friend or relative or carer. You can have up to two in at a time but as you can see if you have more than two people plus you, it can get a little bit busy.

So you can ask people to just take turns outside.

There are bins in each area, if you just press them gently here, they'll open and then another press to close it.

We also have bathrooms in each suite which are noted by the sign and the green door here and they just open on a bit of a hinge.

This is your nurses' zone, there are 2 to 4 specialised chemotherapy nurses working in each zone and nursing assistants as well.

They can be based around the chemo zone or around the floor as well and if you ever need them you can just call, or there are call bells by the chair as well. They'll be over very quickly to help you with anything that you might need.

Through here we can also see our acute oncology area.

Bronagh: Hello my name is Bronagh, I'm an acute oncology nurse here at Guy's and St. Thomas'.

Acute oncology is a service that has been created to support patients if they experience any treatment side effects or their condition suddenly changes during their treatment.

We're contactable 24 hours a day, seven days a week, by using the number that's found in your acute oncology alert cards.

When you ring us, your call will be answered by a specially trained operator who will use the triage tool that you find in the back of your Cancer Research UK treatment record to assess your symptoms. 

They will then transfer your call to one of our clinical nurse specialists who will call you back and go into greater detail about your condition. 

If you have 2 amber or 1 red symptom, we will advise you to seek further assessment. Now that may be either at the acute oncology assessment Unit or at your local A&E department. 

My 1 piece of advice for you would be that if you do experience any symptoms, to call us when you first notice them. We can generally deal with these symptoms before they progress into something more serious.