Blog Diary 2017

Chris Curtis, H&N Cancer Survivor & World Patient Ambassador
Wednesday, 14 th 2017 – Day 4
This was my last day in Las Palmas with Professor Lara and his team and really sad to
be leaving but excited about the next journey to New York and the visit at the famous
‘Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre’.
Today we finished filming the Robots, a nurse specialist who in the past has treated
patients with a drug to protect the Saliva Glands so stopping Dry Mouth we also
interviewed Professor Lara. He explained that he too was an H&N Cancer patient and
said, ‘being an H&N cancer survivor really drives me to ensure the patient is the
most important part and that his team remembers this”.
Before I started this tour I truly thought I would not find a centre better than the
Brighton Cancer Centre but Professor Lara is a true inspiration and his centre is now
my bench mark for all others to be compared against “Platinum Rating”.
Hospital Universitario de Gran Canaria Dr Negrín
When I arrived at the hospital and after the tour of the H&N Cancer Department I
truly thought the hospital was a Private Hospital and that’s why they have the very
latest technology from a Scanner that link GPS with particles in the tumour so it can
be tracked like going on a local road trip to the WOW Cyber Knife machine, ‘How
wrong can you be as this is a PUBLIC HOSPITAL and open to 90% of the
population’.
NHS England would benefit by visiting this hospital and understand how they can do
such great work and put the Patients Outcome First.
The Robots
I asked Professor Lara about job losses in the hospital by using ‘Robots’ and his reply
was very interesting “We use robots to carry out the duties of moving items round the
hospital and the people who would be pushing hospital trolleys are now used to deal
with patient issues example at reception, walking around talking to patients these
people are now are front line patient engagement staff”.
Now we move on to New York to visit centres in the US.....