We are a small team of Clinical Psychologists, Assistant Psychologists and Trainee Clinical Psychologists working into the Oncology and Haematology services at Blackpool Victoria Hospital. We support people across the Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre area who have been diagnosed with cancer. We also work with people from across Lancashire when they are under the care of our Tertiary Haematology Centre at Blackpool Victoria.
We know that cancer doesn’t just affect people’s physical wellbeing, it has an impact on their emotional wellbeing and overall mental health. We see people at various stages of their cancer treatment and beyond to support them with aspects of coping and wellbeing.
This may include support around the following areas:
- Coping with cancer treatment and its impact
- Coming to terms with lived experience and managing loss and change
- Processing difficult experiences, including trauma
- Adjusting to life after a diagnosis and treatment
- Fears around recurrence and the future
- Distress around altered body image and impact of surgery
- Dealing with difficult diagnoses including non-curative cancer
- Supporting people on a palliative pathway and at end of life
We have training and experience in a number of therapeutic tools and techniques, and we will tailor these to the individual’s needs, depending on the particular difficulty they are experiencing.
Click on the names below to meet our colleagues in the Oncology and Haematology team:
Role: Specialist Clinical Psychologist
About: Dr Altaf Sumra is a HCPC registered Clinical Psychologist that specialises in Clinical Health Psychology and works into Oncology and Haematology at Blackpool Victoria Hospital. He trained at the University of Manchester and has experience working in a wide range of settings including CAMHS, CMHT, Inpatient units, Crisis teams and hospital settings.
Therapeutically, his areas of interest a Solution Focused Therapy, Compassion Focused Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
Role: Clinical Psychologist
About: Dr Katie Hatton is an experienced Clinical Psychologist and has worked in the Trust for 12 years within the Pain Management speciality and is currently the Lead for Oncology and Haematology in the Trust. She has over 20 years’ experience supporting psychological wellbeing with people across the lifespan in various NHS settings and first came to work in the Trust in 2003 before completing her training.
Katie is a member of the Association of Clinical Psychologists and the Health and Care Professions Council, a regulatory body for healthcare workers. She completed her clinical training in Lancaster in 2010 and prior to this held a number of posts around the North West of England. She values maintaining good links with the local training courses and has supported numerous trainees on placements and with academic work.
In her Clinical work Katie currently supports people with the often difficult impact of cancer using a number of approaches such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Compassion Focused Therapy. Katie has particularly enjoyed leading group programmes with patients in the past and appreciates the benefits of involving people with lived experience in service development.
