Cancer support and therapies

Male psychologist offering support to patient

Prehabilitation

A healthcare professional and patient sitting in appointment room looking at healthy foods

Support for your body and mind before cancer treatment

Helping you feel stronger, healthier and more prepared

Our cancer rehabilitation service – sometimes called prehabilitation – supports your physical and emotional wellbeing before treatment starts.

You’ll get personalised advice and support from our team of dietitians, physiotherapists, exercise specialists and occupational therapists. Together, we’ll help you:

Build strength and fitness through safe, tailored physical activity
Eat well with specialist nutritional advice
Manage stress and emotions like fatigue, anxiety or low mood

Your consultant or clinical nurse specialist (CNS) can talk to you about prehabilitation and refer you to the team. If appropriate, we’ll contact you directly to arrange an initial appointment.

Useful resources

cancer support

We offer specialist psychological support

To help you manage your diagnosis and treatment

Our team of practitioner psychologists, psychotherapists and art psychotherapists offer specialist support for people affected by cancer.

Our service is available to people with any type or stage of cancer and up to one year post completion of treatment.

We support you to:

manage your cancer treatment and physical symptoms
explore the impact of cancer and treatments on aspects of your life such as your important relationships, your body and how you feel about yourself
make decisions about treatment

We offer:

Short term talking therapy
Short term art psychotherapy, provided through the generous support of The Corinne Burton Memorial Trust, which combines art and talking to express thoughts and feelings
Sessions can be face-to-face, via telephone or video call
Fear of cancer coming back workshops - 2026 dates [pdf] 470KB open to anyone who would like to learn strategies to manage the understandable worries about cancer coming back or spreading.

Please talk to your cancer nuse specialist if you would like to access any of these services.

Other resources

Referring patients to our services

Please consult our psychological support referral guidance infographic [pdf] 241KB to help you consider whether to refer a patient to our team.

Cancer support

Visit Maggie's

A picture of the outside of Maggie's centre Barts in the evening.

Maggie's Barts

Here for you

Maggie’s is an award-winning centre on the grounds of St Bartholomew’s Hospital. It offers free emotional, practical and social support for anyone affected by cancer, their family and their friends.

Run by cancer support specialists with expert knowledge of treatment and care, the centre provides a calm space away from clinical areas.

You can drop in for a chat, join a support group, or take part in helpful workshops.

Visit the centre

Attend a support group

Macmillan cancer support

We work with Macmillan

To offer you personalised care and support

As part of the cancer team at Barts Health we have Macmillan cancer support workers who work alongside our specialist nurses and consultants. They support people who have a cancer diagnosis, are currently undergoing treatment, and those patients who are living with or beyond cancer.

Macmillan also offers holistic needs assessments where you can discuss your wider care, including:

Practical e.g. money, work or household tasks
Family/relationships e.g. changes in your relationships
Emotional e.g. fears, worry, anger, depression or anxiety
Spiritual/religious e.g. loss of faith, loss of meaning or purpose
Physical e.g. appearance, eating, fatigue

Visit a Macmillan cancer support centre

Health and wellbeing resources

Healthy eating and physical activity (duration = 1 hour 10 mins) - use password: jXFX82Vx
Anxiety and sleep disturbance (duration = 57 mins) - use password: TprC3BeC
Mind the Dash (duration = 30 mins)
Togetherness (duration = 24 mins)

Complementary therapies

We are here to improve your quality of life

Through a range of complementary therapies

These are designed to help you relax and manage symptoms including constipation, pain, insomnia, fatigue, breathlessness, muscular aches and anxiety.

We offer:

Aromatherapy
Reflexology
Massage
Shiatsu
Relaxation and guided visualisation
Bowen Technique
Reiki

Contact us

Referrals can be made by your key worker, nurse specialist or any member of your medical team.

Phone: 020 8539 5522 and use extension 5840.

Support our service

The service is free of charge. If you would like to support the service, donations can be made to Special Purpose Fund 8404 at Barts Charity.

Support each other

Share your experience through patient support groups

We run a number of support groups for people affected by cancer. These offer you a chance to meet others going through similar treatment, share experiences, and learn more about your condition.

Many of our clinical nurse specialists (CNS) lead support groups for their patients. Speak to your CNS to find out which groups might be right for you.

Attend a Maggie's support group

Welcome pack for recently diagnosed patients

The following information is provided to newly diagnosed cancer patients at St Bartholomew's Hospital. However, many of the documents are relevant to patients being treated at our other hospitals.

The packs, which cover things like financial support and talking therapies, are usually provided by your clinical team, but you can also download all of the documents here.

Additional support, such as support groups and classes, are available on this page.

Cancer support and therapies

Search the Barts Health NHS Trust website