Colchester's first cancer nurse retires after 40 years dedicated service

Chris Campbell, who was the first chemotherapy nurse in the town, started his nurse training in 1976 at the age of 28 having previously worked as a baker, in a furniture factory and for a men’s clothing manufacturer.

He set up and managed the outpatient chemotherapy service in Colchester.

Now, aged 68, he is to retire from the Mary Barron suite at Colchester General Hospital tomorrow after 40 years in nursing.

Chris is one of the longest serving nurses at Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust.

He said: "I still enjoy it and know I’ll miss it, particularly the patients and colleagues, but now is the right time to retire and take it a bit easier.

"When I started training at the Colchester District School of Nursing at Severalls Hospital, chemotherapy was available in Colchester but patients stayed in overnight.

“Even when we started doing it on an outpatient basis in the early 1980s, at first the majority of patients were still inpatients but that changed over the years.

“We used to see 12 chemotherapy patients a week, but now it’s 40 to 50 a day and there have been so many other changes.

“What’s been wonderful for the patients have been the advances in antiemetic drugs. At the beginning, most patients were sick but now it’s only a few.”

Chris also set up and ran outpatient chemotherapy clinics at Clacton Hospital and at Broomfield Hospital.

Before he began his nurse training, he was a volunteer in A&E for 18 months and it was a night sister there who suggested he should consider nursing as a career.

He’s spent the vast majority of the past four decades working in Colchester – at Severalls Hospital, the old Myland Hospital, Essex County Hospital and, most recently, Colchester General Hospital.

He spent six months at the Royal Marsden Hospital on an oncology course, where he learned about chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

He also visited Southend Hospital and the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital before setting up the outpatient chemotherapy service in Colchester.

As a result of his Royal Marsden connections, Chris introduced peripherally inserted central catheters lines to Colchester, which are used to give chemotherapy treatment, before they went into use at Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge.

Before becoming Colchester’s first chemotherapy nurse, he always worked in cancer treatment, firstly as a staff nurse and later as a charge nurse.

When the service began at Essex County Hospital, it started in a room in the radiotherapy centre there before eventually relocating to what became known as the Mary Barron Suite, which took its name from the hospital’s first matron in the early 19th century.

Sister Vanessa Bradbury said she first met Chris 23 years ago when she was a student nurse on the old oncology ward at Essex County Hospital.

She said: "At that time he was the only chemotherapy nurse covering the whole of Colchester and the surrounding area.

"I was always in awe of his knowledge, and, in particular, his clinical skills.

“I came to refer to him as The Cannula King. There was no-one like him when it came to accessing patients’ veins, which he did, and still does in a gentle way.

“The majority of nurses who work here, myself included, were trained by him.

“Chris has always been dedicated to the care of his patients and the development of the chemotherapy service. He should be proud of what he has achieved. He will be greatly missed by patients and colleagues.”

Chris, who lives in Mistley, is planning to pursue his interests in overseas travel and steam trains during his retirement, as well as building his own model railway.