Charity helps patients 'feel like themselves again'

A charity has said it is marking two years helping cancer sufferers cope with one of the most distressing side effects of treatment.

Force's wig fitting service was set up by volunteers who said making wigs available for loan to patients coping with hair loss helped "make them feel like themselves again".

Shelley Boult, who set up the service in May 2024, said it allowed people to have some control in a journey that was largely out of their hands and was "empowering" for them.

The charity asks for a donation of £30 per wig and patients are taught how to care for and wash their new hair.

Boult said people often re-donated their wigs to the charity when their hair grew back so that it could be used to help someone else.

"I get wigs sent to me from all over the UK, I get so many beautiful stories of people not wanting to give up their wigs because it marks closure of their cancer journeys but now they know they're helping the next lady," she said.

Emma Davies, who is being treated for triple negative breast cancer for the second time, said the service had made a huge difference to her and her family.

She said when she was first diagnosed seven years ago she did not wear a wig but was persuaded to give it a go this time by a friend who volunteers for Force.

"With my wig on I am just Emma, I'm not Emma with cancer, I can go out, strangers don't know what's going on and I can just be me", she said.

She said she would recommend the service to anyone.

"Just coming to the centre, you are met with smiles and a cup of tea and a biscuit, its a whole experience, it's really peaceful and then you go into a room and it's all about you for those 45 minutes, you don't really think about the cancer.

"It was almost like a bit of a pamper session," she said.

Kate Few-Singh, Force chief executive, said wigs usually cost hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds and in a cost of living crisis, the charity wanted to help patients feel more confident for less.

Donations made by those borrowing the wigs are reinvested, she said.

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