First ever ‘More Human’ Ambassador meeting welcomes a very special guest speaker

As part of our new ‘More Human’ Ambassador project we welcomed Chris Curtis to our UK office to see the Leo Cancer Care technology, to hear about our research and for him to share his experience of radiotherapy and the work that his charity The Swallows does for people with head and neck cancer.

The Swallows

The Swallows is a head and neck cancer support charity. It provides support and advice 24 hours a day with its support line, online resources, and support groups that meet regularly all over the world. They work closely with the NHS as an invaluable resource to support a person and their families through diagnosis, treatment and beyond. They organize an annual International head and neck cancer conference which brings together patients, carers and professionals in one place to share stories, advice and advancements in this area of healthcare. Leo Cancer Care attended in 2023 introducing our upright patient positioning system, whilst there we received feedback from attendees on comfort. We hope to attend again this year to talk about how far we have come over the last 2 years. (CLICK HERE to read about our attendance in 2023).

Meeting the team

Chris arrived in the office and started his day with a tour of our new premises. He met different members of the team from across the business including accounting, engineering, marketing and research and development. He had a tour of our warehouse where the upright patient positioning system is built. He was able to see different systems in varying stages of development as they prepare for their journey to their new clinical homes across the globe.

Chris sat in one of our demo upright patient positioning systems and was able to give his feedback from someone who has had supine treatment and can compare the two different treatment positions. He was able to highlight the advantages of being upright, such as ease of setup each day if you have muscle and nerve damage following a neck dissection. He also highlighted areas of our designs that we could work on. Using the feedback of someone with a lived experience of radiotherapy is a vital part of our design process and our research. Our design engineers live for the challenge of making our system and immobilisation truly person-centered with the feedback we get from people who have experience of radiotherapy treatment.

Chris spent some time with our research and development team, talking through research we have already undertaken and our plans for future research including working with patient representatives.

Over to you, Chris

After lunch we invited all the UK and US-based More Human Ambassadors to attend a talk delivered by Chris. He introduced his charity talking about how and why it was formed. It is clear that Chris and his wife Sharon have such passion and devotion to improving the lives of those who receive a head and neck cancer diagnosis. Chris did not hold back in sharing how challenging life became for him after his diagnosis 13 years ago and also during the different treatments he received and how he still experiences the long-term side effects of the treatments that saved his life, even today. His words, whilst difficult to hear at times, served as a reminder to us of why we are working so hard to improve the experience of radiotherapy for people who need it.

Chris spoke positively about upright radiotherapy, how it will change the lives of future patients without them even realizing it. The time spent receiving radiotherapy , typically 4-6 weeks, might only be a small percentage of the overall treatment pathway and recovery time a person affected by this type of cancer follows, however it is a treatment that can significantly impact a persons quality of life, physically and psychologically long term so it is vital that we keep working on making upright radiotherapy an option in mainstream radiotherapy with photons, protons and heavy ions.

We all heard how much receiving radiotherapy had an impact on Chris and if we can lighten that psychological burden and reduce some of the scars that can be left even slightly for future patients, then all the hard work we do now is worthwhile.

For the Ambassadors the next step is to meet again to reflect back on Chris’ visit and see which part of the patient journey and voice we want to explore next to enrich our learning and allow us to keep our focus on person-centered care.