News: At the BAFTA  Cymru Awards in Cardiff on 13th October 2019, ‘Velindre, Hospital of Hope’, a series following patients through treatment for cancer, won the Award for Best Factual Series.

Commissioned by ITV Wales, the series was made by Green Bay Media and featured patients as well as healthcare professionals, including Dr Mark Taubert, a palliative care doctor.

Here, he summarises some of the experiences.

I recently accompanied a family I helped look after to the 2019 BAFTA Cymru awards. I work as a doctor at Velindre Cancer Centre. But there I was, with the husband and son of one of my patients, Allyson, who had recently died from advanced cancer. Together with other patients and relatives, she had played a key part in the ITV Velindre Hospital of Hope mini-series, and some of our encounters were captured on camera by the team from Wildflame Media (then Green Bay Media) . Allyson had received palliative care for nearly 3 years from Velindre, City Hospice and Marie Curie in Penarth, focusing on quality of life, reversing various problems that cropped up, living as normally as possible and getting lots of things done. For instance, she had a big party to renew her wedding vows to Colin, a lavish event at Pier 64 in Penarth. It is fair to say that the boundaries between a doctor/patient interaction, when you get to know each other this well can get blurred, but this never bothered Allyson at all. She would often tell me in no uncertain terms if she thought my treatment plans did not suit her, and we often discussed whether further chemotherapy for her advanced cancer might prove overly burdensome or not, and whether there was any potential benefit. She appreciated the honesty and candour that she got from palliative care and oncology. And so we got to know each other quite well. I attended her wedding vow ceremony, and I was there at her funeral. The TV team got to know her well too, accompanying her to the wedding dress shop and talking to her and her family in her house and in my clinics at the cancer centre. So when husband Colin, and son Luis and myself went up onto the stage at Bafta Cymru to be there when the trophy was handed over, we all thought of Allyson and the patients featured in the programme.

Catrin Jones, the producer of the programme, gave an emotional speech and thanked patients and staff who were on the programme, who made this all happen and who trusted them to film these most intimate moments during their care at Velindre. The sadness, but also the humour, that inhabits this place. Catrin commemorated Allyson, Rebecca and Kevin, all patients on the programme, and the important legacy they had left.

I know that Allyson would have loved being at the Baftas, and then to actually win the award! She would have been over the moon. A very special night. The Alyson I got to know was always keen that her experience with advanced cancer served to educate and help others, and perhaps guide them with the complexity of such a serious illness. For instance being clear which future treatments would seem acceptable and which would not. Allyson accepted some interventions, but said no to others when she felt the balance between benefit and quality of life was not met. So Allyson, thank you for all you have done, from all our hearts.