Worcestershire Royal Hospital’s breast unit to receive a royal visitor
In her capacity as the President of Breast Cancer Haven’s Guardian Programme, HRH The Countess of Wessex GCVO, will be unveiling a commemorative plaque to mark the official opening of Worcestershire Royal Hospital’s new state-of-the-art Breast Unit on Thursday 9 November.
Following a successful regional capital appeal, the £1.8m Unit, which opened in March 2016, offers a comprehensive service under one roof for women and men across the county for all breast related issues.
Breast Cancer Haven CEO, Pamela Healy OBE, will introduce HRH to the brainchild of the new Unit, Consultant Breast Surgeon, Steven Thrush, the Breast Cancer Haven team, its service uses, and Fiona Charny, Chair of Worcestershire Breast Unit Haven charity which raises money to make the service possible.
The Breast Cancer Haven service, which operates one day a week from the Unit, consists of free support to help relieve the physical and emotional side effects of a breast cancer diagnosis.
Pamela Healy OBE, said: “We are thrilled Her Royal Highness is visiting the new unit and is getting the chance to see how Breast Cancer Haven are integrated within the breast unit. Having the combination of core clinical breast cancer care services and supportive therapies in the one location has proved to be a huge success.
“Our services are usually offered from stand alone centres, away from hospitals, so we were pursuing an entirely different service model by being located in a specialist NHS breast unit. Since the service opened in March 2016 we have seen over 200 women so the numbers speak for themselves - we know we are in the right place.
“We are enormously grateful to Steven Thrush who had the vision of integrating clinical and support services under one roof. We are also indebted to the Worcestershire Breast Unit Haven charity for their support in enabling us to provide our vital services.”
Consultant Breast Surgeon, Steven Thrush, added: “We feel we have created a unit with the aid of Breast Cancer Haven that could be the future for breast cancer care in the UK. We are very pleased to have The Countess of Wessex opening the Breast Unit”
Fiona Charny, Chair of the Worcestershire Breast Haven Unit charity, added: “We are thrilled with the new breast unit and to be able to raise the money to offer patients Breast Cancer Haven services is the icing on the cake. We are delighted to be able to show the unit to The Countess of Wessex “
