A new transport service has been launched to provide people from Chesterfield with free, safe travel to Sheffield hospitals for cancer treatment.
The service has been launched by regional charity Weston Park Cancer Charity and will operate twice daily from Monday to Friday, between The University of Derby’s St Helena Campus in Chesterfield and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals.
The Weston Park Cancer Charity Transport Service 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.
The service will follow strict safety measures to keep volunteer drivers and passengers safe at all times. Drivers will all be tested for Covid-19 twice weekly, with buses cleaned thoroughly before every journey.
The launch of the new Transport Service follows Weston Park Cancer Charity’s takeover of Chesterfield cancer charity, Nenna Kind, in 2020. It marks a ’major step forward’ for Weston Park Cancer Charity in its ‘commitment to care in every sense’ for cancer patients and their families in Chesterfield.
Alison Gibson, community development worker at Community Chesterfield who helped facilitate the scheme, said: “At Community Chesterfield we pride ourselves on connecting the region’s voluntary, community and charitable sectors both with the University of Derby and with one another, opening up opportunities for them to work together to create positive impact in the area.
“After a discussion with one of Weston Park Cancer Charity’s volunteers about the benefits that a transport service of this nature would bring, we are absolutely delighted to help facilitate this vital scheme from our offices at the St Helena Campus. It will without doubt be a huge help to residents of Chesterfield who need to travel to Weston Park to undergo cancer treatment and will hopefully go some way to making their lives during an incredibly challenging time that bit easier.”
Read the full story https://www.westonpark.org.uk/chesterfield-transport-service/