« Back to the news page

LloydsPharmacy Healthcare Centres become one of the first community-based settings to support the NHS roll out of Phesgo.

The new injectable breast cancer treatment reduces patient appointment times by 93% from two-and-a-half hours to just 20 minutes.

May 2021: LloydsPharmacy Healthcare Centres have announced a new NHS partnership offering breast cancer patient’s a new formulation of treatment that is administered by injection. The innovative new treatment takes just 20 minutes to administer replacing the previous two to five-hour treatment time, cutting down patient appointment time by 93.4%.  

The new treatment, Phesgo, takes less than half an hour to administer and will be available to patients at three LloydsPharmacy Health Centres across the UK. The time-saving treatment will be offered or available to breast cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and is suitable for  neoadjuvant treatment of adult patients with HER2-positive, locally advanced, inflammatory, or early stage breast cancer, adjuvant treatment of adult patients with HER2-positive early breast cancers and some metastatic breast cancer patients.  

Before this new treatment option, breast cancer patients would receive their treatment through IV infusions and would have to wait half an hour between each one for observation. The total appointment time could take up to five hours.  

LloydsPharmacy Healthcare Centres, offer patients the chance to receive treatment at an alternative location to traditional hospital settings, which can not only save patient’s time but also make treatment easier to access and manage with their day to day lives.  

Nat Bingham, Lead Oncology Nurse for LloydsPharmacy Clinical Homecare said; “Our role as nurses is to support patients through what can be a very difficult time in their lives. One of the things that patients can find difficult to adjust to is just how much of their time was taken with attending appointments and ongoing treatment, instead of enjoying time with their family and loved ones. By offering this innovative treatment we can not only save patients time to do the things they really want to be doing, but it also allows treatment to be simpler and less invasive.” 

Sarah Rickels, Head of Nursing at LPCH commented: “We are so pleased to be offering such a life changing treatment to patients. The quicker, and kinder treatment will benefit women by freeing up previous time and avoiding the need to visit hospitals during the Covid pandemic too.” 

The new breast cancer treatment, Phesgo, is now available at the LloydsPharmacy Clinical Homecare Centres in Vilandre (Cardiff) and Newcastle, with further rollout with Royal Surrey and Scunthorpe in the coming weeks. 

Deborah Jones, one of the first patients to receive Phesgo from the LloydsPharmacy Healthcare Centre in Newcastle, commented: “While the experience at the hospital was very friendly and I am grateful to them all, coming to Lloyds has been brilliant. My treatment has been very difficult in the past. Having repeated IV treatment has meant my veins are very poor, and getting my treatment became more and more painful. At the clinic I was delighted at the explanations and well prepared for the injection. The biggest thing for me is that the appointment is so quick and yet the method of delivery of the injection so much slower which means less pain and distress. I can see how so many women would benefit from receiving this treatment at a LloydsPharmacy Healthcare Centre”.