PARAMEDICS are being trained to better treat and support cancer patients across the South West.

In a first-of-its-kind project, charity Macmillan Cancer Support are training paramedics and ambulance clinicians.

The aim of the scheme – which runs until 2019 – is to make sure that sick patients are able to stay at home, rather than having to make long trips to hospital.

South Western Ambulance Service estimate that, during each shift, their crews are called to at least one patient who has cancer or is close to the end of their life.

The ambulance trust's chief executive Ken Wenman said: “It’s a ground-breaking project that delivers better care for patients where they want to be treated and reduces hospital admissions to emergency departments.”

“This project enables us to deliver more appropriate care and, in many cases, this means treating them at home. This approach enables us to deliver care more in line with patients’ wishes. We do of course still take patients to hospital where that is in their best interests.”

Charity Macmillan put £1 million into the initial four year training scheme. The money paid for staff training in administering additional medications and having sensitive conversations with patients in the final days of their lives.

Elizabeth Wright, Macmillan’s strategic partnership manager, said that the project was helping the growing numbers of people diagnosed – and living with – cancer.

She said: “Increasing numbers of cancer patients mean ambulance staff will inevitably attend more people with cancer.

“Patients prefer to be treated at home where possible and for many people at end of life that is also the place they want to die.

“Before this project, a 999 call would be far more likely to result in the patient being taken to hospital. This is changing for the better, giving ambulance service staff and patients more options.”

Joanne Stonehouse, a paramedic of 18 years and the Macmillan project lead for South Western Ambulance Service, added: “Ambulance service staff naturally want to save lives and this is what they are trained to do.

“It’s just as important for our staff to recognise when keeping a patient at home is the best option for them and their family.”

Specialist paramedic Simon Tutt said that this training had proved useful when he was called to a woman with a terminal bowel cancer diagnosis.

He said: “Her family called the ambulance service thinking hospital was the best place for her as they felt unable to cope with her condition. She didn’t want to go.

“I used my cancer care training to talk to them about what was happening and what we could do. I was able to relieve her symptoms using medications, allowing the patient to relax and sleep.”

A week later, he learned that the had woman passed away peacefully at home.

South Western’s Joanne Stonehouse said that the service would evaluate the project over the coming year – with interest in the scheme already being shown by other ambulance services.