60 seconds with…Joey Ancheta
We spoke to Joey Ancheta, advance nurse practitioner in Urology, about his work at Whipps Cross, highlights from the past year and being a winner of the Star of the Month award.
Hi Joey, can you tell us a little bit more about your role?
My role is mainly about running diagnostic tests for patients with suspected prostate cancer. I also support the blood cancer and renal cancer teams.
I also do biopsies, and send patients for treatment or surgery if they need it. We follow them up until discharge or if there’s recurrent we keep with the treatment.
I work across all sites, so for example I do telephone clinics for Newham and I’m at The Royal London on Mondays.
How long have you with us?
I’ve been at Barts Health on and off. I came here from Guy’s Hospital and I was going back and forward but in 2008 I started in the prostate department at St Bartholomew’s Hospital.
Then I went back to Guy’s in 2013 and a few years later, in 2017 I came back to Barts as the lead in survivorship in prostate cancer- which is a holistic assessment for cancer patients, which means that we not only treat them for cancer but the side effects of the treatment, that’s why we call it a holistic approach. I was in this role for one year and then I shifted to my speciality which is prostate cancer which is what I do now.
What do you enjoy the most about your role?
I really enjoy my work because I’ve been an urology specialist for quite some time now. If a patient has been cured from prostate cancer and I discharge it I feel so happy and proud about this - prostate cancer is different from other types of cancers as it can be cured.
My other satisfaction relates to the biopsies I do. When I came back here from Guy’s Hospital in 2017 they were still doing a trans-rectal biopsies so I stopped this type of biopsies and introduced a new local anaesthetic transperineal technique in 2019 and since then we haven’t had any sepsis, we basically eradicated this across the Trust, and patients are very happy about this and I can see the real difference that has made to them.
What do you like about working at Whipps Cross?
My team here is very supportive, all of the urology team is really supportive and having the support of the consultants helps me a lot. The support of my team is excellent that’s why I keep coming back here!
Any particular thing or highlight you feel most proud about?
Service improvement in urology is my highlight.
My highlight is the improvement that I made in the urology department with the introduction of the transperineal technique.
This has also helped improved the cancer pathway and the waiting times which has also resulted in a better patient experience.
How do you feel about being named Star of the Month?
I’m very surprised. I’m so happy and so glad that colleagues and patients have noticed and recognised my work.
Everything I do is patient-centred.
I’m so happy that someone noticed this because really we are all working really hard in the NHS, my whole team and the whole of the NHS.