Accord Healthcare: New Digital resource to help cancer patients manage their symptoms
Incorporating expert cancer information from Macmillan Cancer Support, Accord Healthcare launches new app for cancer patients – more pertinent than ever during COVID-19 pandemic
This press release is intended for general distribution to UK consumer, trade, and medical press
HARROW, England, June 14, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Accord Healthcare (Accord) today announced the launch of Unify Health – a new app for cancer patients undergoing treatment incorporating expert data from Macmillan Cancer Support. This new resource has been devised by experts from across the cancer community to support and advise people on their physical and mental wellbeing whilst undergoing cancer treatment. The app can also connect patients with not just local pharmacists in their area but also community pharmacists who have committed to become 'Community Cancer Champions.'
Experts at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, the world-leading cancer centre and teaching institution have helped to develop a practical, bite-size training curriculum for community pharmacists who wish to help champion cancer care in the community. The training provides advice on how to talk to and assist cancer patients, particularly around managing symptoms and worries.
Undergoing cancer treatment can be bewildering, with an array of advice and support available from many different sources. This has only been made worse during the COVID-19 pandemic, as cancer patients may have felt the need to avoid healthcare facilities, for fear of being put at greater risk of coming into contact with the virus.
Unify Health aims to be an app that is always accessible, no matter whether it is night or day that cancer patients and their carers can use, providing a toolkit of tailored advice and information with the ability to locate community pharmacists with training on the management of cancer symptoms and side effects caused by its treatments. These side effects vary from person to person but can include amongst other things dry skin following radio or chemotherapy, disrupted sleep, mouth and throat sores, hair loss, nutritional needs, and feelings of nausea.
"The pandemic has had a huge impact on cancer care in the UK," says Dany Bell, Strategic Adviser for Treatment, from Macmillan Cancer Support. "There is a need now, more than ever to develop measures for effective support for management of symptoms and reducing further, any barriers for people to safely access advice. It's all very well searching for information online, but it's so much more reassuring for someone living with cancer to actually connect with a 'real person' – a healthcare professional who has committed to Cancer Care in the Community who can also provide tailored advice, specific to an individual patient's needs.
"Limited access to hospitals and hands-on care during the pandemic has simply exacerbated the mental health burden on cancer patients during the last 12 months," said Badri Wadawadigi, Accord Healthcare's Head of Digital Health. "If people can face their cancer armed with tailored but medically validated information, this could help decrease worry and may also result in better healthcare outcomes," he continued.
While access to care has been affected by COVID-19, the pandemic has seen greater acceptance within the medical community of new digital approaches to reach out to all patients, not just those with a cancer diagnosis. GPs and hospital consultants have been conducting remote consultations, either by phone or video, and the healthcare sector has accelerated new ways of interacting with patients.
Unify Health is an app for people with cancer and their carers and is available on both the Android and Apple app stores. You can download it free from www.unifyhealth.app
Notes to Editor
About Macmillan Cancer Support
At Macmillan, we give people with cancer everything we've got. If you're diagnosed, your worries are our worries. We will move mountains to help you live life as fully as you can.
And we don't stop there. We're going all out to find ever better ways to help people with cancer, helping to bring forward the day when everyone gets life-transforming support from day one.
We'll do whatever it takes. For information, support or just someone to talk to, call 0808 808 0000 or visit macmillan.org.uk
About Accord Healthcare
Headquartered in the United Kingdom, Accord Healthcare Europe is one of the fastest growing pharmaceutical companies in Europe. Accord has one of the largest market footprints of any European generic and biosimilars companies selling generic medicines in over 80 countries around the world.
This global footprint enables us to deliver vital, affordable medicines to national health systems supporting healthcare professionals to transform patient lives worldwide.
The approach of Accord is agile and inventive, always seeking to improve products and patients' access to them. Accord are driven to think differently and deliver more for the benefit of patients worldwide.
Contact:
pr@accord-healthcare.com
+44 (0)7887 471200
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