Macmillan Living With and Beyond Cancer Team at The Royal Oldham Hospital shortlisted for national award

Macmillan Living With and Beyond Cancer Team

A team based at The Royal Oldham Hospital has been shortlisted for a national Macmillan Professionals Excellence Award which recognises and celebrates the outstanding contribution Macmillan professionals make to cancer services.

The Macmillan living with and beyond cancer project is a finalist in the service improvement excellence category, which rewards people who have developed integrated services which have greatly improved the experiences of people affected by cancer.

The team has been through a rigorous assessment process where representatives have presented to a panel of judges including Macmillan Cancer Support, charity trustees and people affected by cancer.

Four winners will be announced on the evening of 16 November at the Macmillan Professionals Awards ceremony in London and the lucky winners will receive £150 plus an award for an individual winner, and £500 and a plaque for a winning team.

The Macmillan living with and beyond cancer project team is based at The Royal Oldham Hospital and comprises Debbie Ashforth, Macmillan transformation programme lead; Helen Wrench, quality improvement facilitator and Emily Sidebottom, user involvement co-ordinator.

Working across all sites within Pennine Acute Trust – The Royal Oldham Hospital, North Manchester General Hospital, Rochdale Infirmary, Fairfield General Hospital and community services, the project team was established in August 2015 to support the Trust’s clinical cancer teams to embed the cancer ‘recovery package’. This is a combination of different interventions which when delivered together, will greatly improve the outcomes and coordination of care for people living with and beyond cancer.

The key components of the cancer recovery package include: 

• Holistic needs assessment (HNA) and care planning
• Cancer treatment summary
• Cancer care review and
• Health and wellbeing events

The project team support clinicians and clinical administration within head and neck, urology, haematology, colorectal, upper gastrointestinal, hepatobiliary, gynaecology and specialist palliative care tumour groups and have also engaged with the breast and lung cancer teams which are currently under the remit of Macmillan Cancer Improvement Partnership (MCIP).

Working alongside the project team is their patient and carer involvement group – Pennine Acute Macmillan patient engagement representatives (PAMPER). These are people affected by cancer and who are helping to ensure that the patient voice is at the heart of decision making.

Since the formation of the team they have used a phased approach to engage all cancer teams and key achievements include:

• Nine tumour specific pathway mapping/engagement events
• The creation of semi pre-populated end of treatment summaries for all tumour groups
• Training and education sessions for all clinical administration staff and clinical nurse specialists
• Establishing appropriate clinic slots for electronic holistic needs assessment and care planning

Debbie Ashforth, Macmillan transformation programme lead for the Macmillan Living With and Beyond Cancer project team, said: “I feel an immense sense of achievement to have been shortlisted, along with my team, for this very special award. This is within two years of the project being up and running, which is a short space of time to have achieved this huge recognition.

“Greater Manchester Cancer has recognised The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust as a leader and role model for implementation of cancer treatment summaries and we are honoured to have the opportunity to share our findings with our colleagues nationally and help other organisations in their approach to rolling out the cancer recovery package.”