Have you been referred to the Kingston Hospital Cancer Care term for an urgent appointment? We have gathered answers to the most frequently asked questions about our Cancer Services together on this page.
If you want further information or would like to contact one of the Cancer Teams, please visit our Cancer Care page for a list of all cancer departments in the hospital.
Your GP has arranged an urgent referral so that your symptoms can be investigated to find out what is causing your symptoms and whether or not it could be cancer. There are a few pathways that you may follow.
A one stop clinic aims to provide patients with an initial consultation, diagnosis and treatment plan within one visit to a clinic. They are aimed at diagnosing and creating a treatment plan for one specific condition such as one stop breast clinic and one stop gynae clinic.
If you don’t hear from the hospital with 5 working days of seeing your GP please call your GP surgery and check the referral has been sent to Kingston Hospital
Your initial investigations will be discussed with a consultant and we will communicate these results to you, face to face or via telephone. You may be asked to have some further investigations
After you have had your initial investigation you may be asked to have more investigations as part of the faster diagnosis pathway. This may include further scans and obtaining tissue which will be looked at closely under a microscope.
https://www.macmillan.org.uk/cancer-information-and-support/diagnostic-tests/blood-tests
https://www.macmillan.org.uk/cancer-information-and-support/diagnostic-tests/ct-scan
https://www.macmillan.org.uk/cancer-information-and-support/diagnostic-tests/pet-scan
https://www.macmillan.org.uk/cancer-information-and-support/diagnostic-tests/mri-scan
If you are asked to have any of the above investigations a health care professional will call you with specific instructions.
For a small number of people the test results show a suspected cancer. If this happens your case will be discussed in a multi-disciplinary meeting, which takes place weekly.
Following this you will be contacted by a team member who will discuss what will happen next.
Yes. At this appointment, your treatment pathway with be discussed with you. You will be allocated a cancer clinical nurse specialist who will be your main point of contact. They will give you information about your diagnosis and treatment and contact details.
Practical tips for talking with healthcare staff can be found on Macmillan pages and include:
When a person is diagnosed with cancer in the UK information about them is automatically included in their national cancer registry.
It is data from cancer registries that tells us how many people are diagnosed with cancer, what treatments they have, how long they live, and whether this is getting better or worse. This information can then be used to help plan cancer services and identify where further progress is needed in order to improve the lives of all people affected by cancer.
(Cancer research uk)
For further details please go to:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/national-cancer-registration-and-analysis-service-ncras
https://www.macmillan.org.uk/cancer-information-and-support/diagnosis/cancer-registry
If you are living with cancer, you may be able to get help with health costs. Find out more about financial support for things like prescriptions, wigs, and dental treatment.
We also have access to a finance and benefits advisor at the hospital. They may be able to help you further and discuss what benefits you may be entitled to.
The government has asked the NHS to ensure that people with suspected cancer receive a cancer diagnosis or are informed that they do not have cancer within 28 days of their GP referral.
Treatments for lung cancer include surgery, systemic therapy and radiotherapy.
If surgery is a treatment option you will have your surgery at St Georges Hospital, Tooting. Follow-up will then be at Kingston Hospital.
Radiotherapy takes place at Royal Marsden Hospital, Sutton under the care of a clinical oncologist. Each treatment of radiotherapy is known as a “fraction of radiotherapy”. The amount of fractions will vary depending on the type of lung cancer and treatment regime. The Royal Marsden will discuss this with you and a planning CT scan will be performed before radiotherapy starts.
Systemic therapy is given at Kingston Hospital in the Sir William Rous Unit (SWRU) under the management of a medical oncologist from the Royal Marsden Hospital. If the multi-disciplinary team feel systemic therapy would be the best treatment option, your tissue will be sent off for further analysis to look for any molecular mutations. This ensures you recive the most appropriate treatment for you. This systemic treatment may be chemotherapy, tablet therapy, immunotherapy or a combination of these treatments. They are administered intravenously or orally.
You may have one treatment, or all three treatments at different times of your pathway. Your clinical nurse specialist will be your contact to guide and support you through these treatments.
Your hospital department will let you know if this is possible. If this is not possible, a relative or friend can join you over the phone or via video on your phone. The nurse or doctor should ask you if you want this. But if they don’t, please do ask for it.
Many people find it very helpful to have someone else to help ask questions or write down what is being discussed. More tips on how to get the most out of your hospital appointment can be found here.
Please visit our dedicated page for cancer carers for more information.
In the first instance please speak to your cancer Clinical Nurse Specialist. You can also ask to speak to your GP.
Yes. When patients have completed active cancer treatment or have cared for someone who was treated for cancer at least one year ago they are welcome to join our group.
