World Neck and Head Cancer Day - July 27th

L-R Deirdre O’Grady, Tracheostomy CNS, SJH, Sorcha McManus, Senior SLT, SJH, Deirdre Leavy, Senior SLT, SJH, Máire Kane, Designer in Residence, SJH, Chris Soraghan, Dept of Medical Physics and Bioengineering, SJH.

In line with Slaintecare’s reform programme and the current St. James’s nursing strategy 2023-2025, the TrCNS team embarked on a large interdisciplinary team project for our community long term neck breathers. We collaborated with our patients, medical physics and bioengineering, the design and innovation lab, the patient representative group and the moving image department NCAD Dublin. The initiative was funded through the SPARK innovation project. Together we created a moving image which will inform patients on “what to expect after laryngectomy surgery”, which is accompanied by self-care videos, performed by our patients.

This is a patient centred quality improvement initiative which aims to inform, support, and empower patients, family, healthcare professionals and the wider community on laryngectomy surgery and laryngectomy care.

Laryngectomy, or the removal of the voicebox, is life changing surgery which affects how a person breathes, speaks and swallows food and drink. Facing into this surgery can be challenging for patients and their loved ones. There are many team members involved in their care and a lot of complex information to process. This animation video was developed to help explain these changes in simple terms to inform, support and empower patients, their families, healthcare professionals and the wider community. The video is accompanied by self-care videos to show patients how to care for their altered airway at home. This collaborative project involved Head and Neck Cancer patients, the Patient Representative Group, the Speech and Language Therapy Dept., Tracheostomy Clinical Nurse Specialist (CNS) Team and the Design Innovation Lab in the Dept. of Medical Physics and Bioengineering at St. James’ Hospital, with graphics and animation work by the moving Image Design Dept. at NCAD (Sinead Roth, Connor Jewel, Jess Diebold and Ed McGinley). The initiative was funded through the HSE SPARK Innovation Project. Please feel free to share with patients and colleagues!

Scan this QR code for the Laryngectomy video created by the SLT team.