Weston Park Cancer Charity – video case study

Our role at Community Chesterfield is to link up the local voluntary and community sector with the University of Derby. The support we provide can come in many forms and one charity we have been able to help this year is Weston Park Cancer Charity.

The charity, which raises funds to support cancer research, improve cancer treatment services and provide care and support for cancer patients and their families, was looking to relaunch its free transport service for cancer patients from Chesterfield.

We were able to support the charity in finding a location to run their transport service from, putting them in touch with the St Helena Campus at the University of Derby in Chesterfield.

They are now able to store their buses within the campus and patients are collected from there to be taken to any of the Sheffield hospitals from treatment, before being dropped off there on their return. Patients also have access to a room within the campus to wait for the bus in a warm, safe and secure environment.

The service operates twice daily from Monday to Friday and could save hundreds of pounds in travel costs each week for people in Chesterfield and the surrounding areas who are living with cancer.

Around 20 per cent of patients at Weston Park Cancer Centre – one of the four hospitals to which the transport service will provide free travel – are from Chesterfield, the equivalent of more than 3,000 patients at any one time and more than 1,300 each year.

You can read the full story about the Weston Park Cancer Charity transport service here and for more information about the charity and how you can support them, take a look at their website.