Penny Brohn UK wellbeing services

At GenesisCare, we understand that cancer can be an overwhelming and life-changing experience that can impact much more than your physical health. That’s why we’ve partnered with national cancer charity Penny Brohn UK to provide a unique and evidence-informed approach to supporting your emotional and physical wellbeing.

Penny Brohn UK is a pioneer in integrative cancer care practices. Through our partnership, established in 2013, we’re able to offer you appointments with Penny Brohn UK Wellbeing Consultants who will assess you holistically, give you individual health and wellbeing advice, and help you select a bespoke programme of specialist therapies such as reflexology, acupuncture, relaxation and mindfulness training, and counselling.

Through a programme of tailored complementary, wellbeing and lifestyle therapies we can help you to deal with the impact and side effects of your diagnosis and treatment and work safely alongside your clinical care. This type of integrative cancer care is now widely seen by international cancer experts as a key part of recovery and survivorship and is personally tailored according to your needs and concerns. This is available to you at selected centres or remotely, online or by phone, alongside your clinical care.

If you’re a patient at GenesisCare, you will be offered this support at no extra cost to you or your insurance provider. It is up to you whether you choose to use it, but more than 95% of our patients do and find it a valuable experience.

When you’re referred to GenesisCare, you’ll be assigned a Penny Brohn Wellbeing Consultant, either in person, online or by phone. You’ll have a holistic needs assessment with your Wellbeing Consultant to reflect on how you are responding to your current health situation and to identify areas where you might need more support. This enables you to identify what concerns you most about your diagnosis, treatment and general wellbeing. From this, we will design a personalised programme of support including therapies that aim to alleviate your concerns and build your emotional and physical resilience.

Many of our centres offer Penny Brohn support face-to-face and we’ll aim to fit any sessions around your treatment times. The range of wellbeing therapies we offer will be personalised to you based on your needs and will aim to alleviate your concerns and improve your quality of life. This may include:

• Counselling
• Mindfulness meditation
• Relaxation
• Reflexology

At our other centres or if you prefer – particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic – we offer consultations with your Penny Brohn Wellbeing Consultant via telephone or Zoom video conferencing. Our Wellbeing Consultant will contact you to arrange a suitable time to have your consultation and discuss how best you can be supported.

If you wish, you can access online cancer support from Penny Brohn UK via their charity’s website. Services are offered on a donation basis. Here you can access a helpline for information and bookings, one to one telephone and video appointments with an integrative doctor, nutritional and exercise therapy sessions.

Resources for nutrition and eating well, managing stress and emotions, and staying active with physical activity can also be found on the Penny Brohn website. They have online Zoom group sessions and 1-1 sessions as part of Penny Brohn UK’s general support services.

Our patients have found that this extra support available continues to build their resilience after treatment has finished at GenesisCare.

At the end of your initial wellbeing sessions, we’ll ask you to complete another questionnaire to check that your concerns have been addressed successfully. Our experience is that most people will see a big improvement in how they feel after their initial sessions.

Research shows that optimising nutrition, sleep and physical activity levels can improve cancer treatment outcomes and reduce treatment side effects. It also shows that emotions like fear, anger and shock may increase stress and result in the immune system not working at its best. We can’t eliminate these natural emotions from our lives, but integrative cancer care approaches, which focus on the mind, the emotions and the spirit, as well as the body, can help you manage them better.

The vast majority of our patients come away from their Penny Brohn UK experience feeling a lot more optimistic about their life with cancer and what the future holds for them. Our assessments continuously show that Penny Brohn UK services significantly improve people’s cancer-related concerns and wellbeing.

This type of Integrative care is now widely seen by cancer experts as a key part of recovery and survivorship. We’re using our knowledge to help educate doctors about the importance of taking an integrative approach to cancer care.