North Central London Cancer Alliance

Really pleased to share this film of highlights from the #NCLCancerConference with interview snippets from Ali Malik Frances O'Callaghan Pete Landstrom David Probert and Amanda Pritchard. It was such a privilege to come together to share some of the amazing work going on in NCL and collaborate on ways to improve patient care and outcomes. Thanks again to all those who came!

Last week we hosted a Cancer Connections event. Representatives from over 50 North Central London NHS, voluntary and community sector, and council organisations, joined us to:   • learn about the physical activity and emotional support needs of people with cancer.   • discover the support available to promote physical activity and support emotional wellbeing across our geography.     Our Programme Lead Sharon Cavanagh explained that encouraging people with cancer to be more physically active and ensuring that they have personalised emotional support throughout the cancer pathway are crucial to improving patient experience, outcomes and quality of life. There were presentations from academic and clinical psychology experts, as well as hospital and community colleagues from organisations who deliver services to support patients and carers. There was also lots of opportunity for networking to build and strengthen relationships between organisations. Even though attendees raised issues that we are already trying to address, they gave us a lot more to think about and to action. These include representation of non-white participants in our work, strengthening our work with voluntary and community sector organisations to access minority ethnic and underrepresented groups, addressing the barriers to engagement with us, and remembering the personal touch rather than digital only.  There were also important points made about cultural sensitivity in therapy, effective referral processes that encourage participation, and awareness raising among minority communities of the range of services and information resources that are available to support them. Thank you to all of our speakers for the day who were so inspiring and informative: Abi Fisher, Sue Smith, Tilly Stilitz, Matthew Wing, Emily Leonhardt-Tyler, Libby Lyons, Tim Callen, Anna Lewis-Keen, Azmina Rose, Vikky Riley , Selena Leather.  We have had early feedback that the event was very valuable and there is appetite for more…so watch this space!    

More important research on the way from one of our North Central London partners. #WorldCancerDay

Behind every cancer diagnosis is a unique human story—for the person living with cancer and for their family, friends and carers. Our overriding aim is to ensure people-centred care, seeing the whole person and meeting their unique needs with compassion and empathy. To mark the day we asked a few local patients to share something about how they feel and what keeps them going. We thank them for their words and images which show that their lives continue to be enriched in different ways. #WorldCancerDay #UnitedByUnique 

Our Innovation Fund is one of the many ways we support the improvement of cancer services in North Central London. In this round of awards, run in partnership with UCLPartners, we have focused on making patient experience better, as it is one of our central goals. The three 2024/25 awards are for use of virtual reality to improve healthcare professionals’ communication with patients, development of a virtual surgery school and app for gynaecology patients, and virtual cancer wellbeing clinics in primary care. Congratulations to the project teams from University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Barnet Primary Care Network 5. We are looking forward to updates and reviewing how their work is developing later in the year. Find out more https://lnkd.in/gBNQXhUA

Last Thursday we spent most of the day exploring, as a team, our real understanding of health inequalities and how we can address local health inequalities in cancer care. We’re so grateful to Cheshire and Merseyside Cancer Alliance for sharing their learnings, experience and materials with us. We each had the opportunity to focus our minds on changing one thing, which by the end of the day added up to an exciting long list of ‘things’. We’ll now work at including as much of this as possible into our forthcoming work across all programmes. All very timely for planning season! Our thanks to Jo Trask and Helen Johnstone for visiting us in London and being such an inspiration. They are pictured here with Fanta Bojang, our Programme Lead for Inequalities and Lipi Begum, PhD, our Health Inequalities Improvement Manager.

North Central London Cancer Alliance’s Co-clinical Director, Prof Derralynn Hughes, will be speaking at a webinar on Transforming Cancer Research and Care with Real-World Data on 28 January. Derralynn is Professor in experimental haematology, clinical director of research and innovation at Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust. In the webinar Senior healthcare leaders will be sharing their experiences using and accessing routinely collected NHS data, discussing the benefits it can bring to patients, the public, and the NHS, as well as common challenges. Webinar date: 28 January 2025 1-2pm For more information, a full list of speakers or to register: https://lnkd.in/etPRhd62 

It’s Cervical Cancer Prevention Week and we’ve with partnered the other three Cancer Alliances in London and with Dr Nighat Arif and Laura Adlington to debunk misconceptions around cervical screening. This includes tips to help you feel more comfortable during your appointment. It’s really important that when invited for your screening, you attend. It can save your life! #CervicalCancerPreventionWeek #GetScreenedNow https://lnkd.in/ewqwq5bz

We put a lot of work into a project to start addressing the low uptake of cancer screening by people experiencing homelessness. The public facing Your Health First campaign was just one element employed to help make a difference. Detailed stakeholder engagement, adoption of reasonable adjustments, training for professionals working in homelessness support services, and screening information booklets are all contributing to making change. NHS England Chief Executive Officer, Amanda Pritchard, praised the work at our cancer conference last November. The enormous effort by many has been recognised in an evaluation report by Homeless Link along with the recommendation that the methods are adopted across London. Read more the evaluation here https://lnkd.in/eSrqHAX3

Our super sharp team in the Centre for Cancer Outcomes analyses, interrogates, and cuts through information about cancer services, the number of people seen and treated, and their outcomes to help healthcare in North Central London to make improvements in the right places. We are now recruiting for an analytics manager to join the team. Apply if you are a great collaborator, mentor, and an experienced analyst. Find out more here https://lnkd.in/eCprZmkx Closing date 26 January 2025.