Lynn Reaper's story

Lynn Reaper, Macmillan Lead Cancer Nurse

Lynn is our lead nurse for cancer services and during COVID-19, she went from travelling between four hospital sites and coordinating services for patients, to working exclusively from home for several months.

Lynn said: “I had been in the lead nurse role for two years and appointed a deputy in Dec 2019, to assist with the day-to-day management of cancer services. Just a few months later, the UK was in the midst of a pandemic and all of a sudden, the way we delivered our service, changed.

“We were faced with almost restarting the service, as we moved patients from in-person appointments to phone or video, maintained MDTs using virtual platforms such as Microsoft Teams and relocated some services such as chemotherapy from hospital sites to satellite clinics. Our main priority was keeping our vulnerable patients safe, and continuing with urgent and lifesaving cancer treatments.

“Working from home caused me a lot of guilt – as a nurse of 30 years, I felt like I should be in the hospital providing care. Instead I was managing cancer services remotely, dealing with cancer patient complaints and referrals from tertiary hospitals. I was also supporting specialist nurses who were redeployed to wards and critical care units.

“During the second wave of the pandemic, I undertook training to provide psychology first aid (PFA) support to critical care areas so felt like I was doing more for the cause!

“During the third wave I volunteered to be redeployed to the critical care unit. This was well out of my comfort zone having worked in cancer for 30 years! I offered one shift a week at Heartlands as well as continuing with psychological first aid shifts and maintaining my own role as lead cancer nurse. I carried out one day of training and with an overwhelming feeling of anxiety and anticipation, I started my first shift.

“I have nothing but admiration for the amazing staff who work in the unit full-time. They are phenomenal - helpful, friendly, super professional and they completely overwhelmed me with their expertise, knowledge and skills under the most difficult of circumstances. I really enjoyed getting back to the frontline of nursing and was able to renew my clinical skills. Working as a reservist has been one of the most rewarding things I have done in my 30+ year nursing career. The staff support from the teams has been outstanding. Seeing patients so critically sick then improve was amazing but also devastating when patients did not survive this awful virus.

 “We are still catching up with a backlog of patients who have been waiting for treatment or appointments. It’s causing a lot of anxiety for them and also for us, as staff. We want to offer a gold standard of care and with services still recovering, and numbers of Covid-19 patients still high, we can’t do this.

“The upside to all of this for patients is that many of them have been able to move to virtual appointments, which has been particularly convenient for those who have to travel from all over the UK to access our services.             

Lynn is proud of her own specialist nursing teams in cancer and her deputy lead cancer who has maintained delivery of a national project throughout the pandemic.

“I am very proud to have had the opportunity to work with amazing staff on ITU at Heartlands and be a part of the COVID-19 effort in supporting truly sick patients. I am proud to have maintained my own role in driving cancer nursing forward in the trust despite the pressures of the pandemic, developing cancer nursing education pathways, career development and job opportunities.”