ABSTRACT
In Chapter 1 I outlined the formal aims and objectives of the day care pilot, highlighting in particular the strong emphasis given to rehabilitation, premised upon the idea of relatively short ‘packages’ of care offered to each individual patient. Yet if the formal goals of day care are juxtaposed with the poem above, it becomes evident that the service was perceived and valued by its participants in a very different way. Far from being seen as a rehabilitative stepping-stone, day care, as the poem’s title aptly suggests, was valued as a ‘safe retreat’ or, as another patient described it, as ‘a safe haven’. Patients frequently suggested that day care constituted the one space available to them in which they felt that they could ‘be themselves’, ‘live with their cancer’, or, as one woman put it, ‘return to a normal life’.
