HEAD and neck cancer patients forced to travel to hospital in Oxford to receive rehabilitation treatment will now be seen by a specialist team set up at Swindon Great Western Hospital.

The Care Closer to Home project has been several years in the making and will see speech and language therapy, and dietician, psychological and dentistry services offered within the county.

Nick Crowson-Towers is a patient from Wiltshire who spent hours travelling back and forth to the Oxford University Hospitals while receiving treatment. Now he only has to go as far as Swindon to get the help he needs.

Now he will receive ongoing care from the weekly clinic as Swindon. He said: “One patient from Swindon needed 81 follow up appointments in one year. The distance and time to travel between Swindon and Oxford can be so demanding. Nothing can prepare you for the gruelling road ahead.

“To avoid the trauma of extended, regular, costly travel to Oxford will be a tonic in itself, and not to have to prepare refreshments for the journey, a relief.

“A realisation that the standard of complex treatment will be to the same high standards, but locally, from a cohesive team of medical professionals will be so reassuring; with an open route to Oxford Churchill should it be necessary.

The HNC Patients and Carers will truly cherish this local breakthrough.”

Speaking to the Wiltshire Health Select Committee on September 11, Abbey Mabil, Head and Neck Cancer (HNC) Rehabilitation: Care Closer to Home Project said: “There are numerous benefits for the patients, trusts and wider health system including improved patient experience through reduction in frequent long journeys and improved quality of service for patients from Swindon and Wiltshire.

“There will be the development of local expertise in Swindon which can be built on in the future.”

The project has already taken on nine patients from across Wiltshire, with numbers expected to grow throughout the three years trial.