The Cancer Alliance remains committed to ensuring that patient experience is viewed on a par with clinical outcomes.
Only by listening to the views and experiences of those whose lives have been affected by cancer will we be able to realise our ambition of wrapping cancer care, treatment and support around them as individuals.
The involvement of patients and carers, and the wider public, is fundamental to the planning and delivery of all aspects of Cancer Alliance business and its individual work programmes.
Our communications and engagement strategy is scheduled for review during the current year 2024/2025 and will reflect our involvement work and the way in which we gather and learn from patient experience across a number of areas, including:
Lay Board members already use their cancer patient/carer and broader networks at national, regional, place and community level to gather informal intelligence, feedback and shared experiences for sharing with the Board and to influence strategy development and delivery.
Paul Vose, pictured right with Tracy Holmes, Cancer Alliance Communications and Engagement Lead, joined the Cancer Alliance Board in September 2018. Paul was diagnosed with tonsil cancer in 2006, at the age of 44. Complications following treatment meant that for 10 years Paul was unable to swallow, receiving all nutrition and calories via a feeding tube directly into his stomach.
Despite the challenges presented by his condition and treatment – including having to give up his work as a Commercial Bank Manager – Paul has continued to spend much of his time helping to improve cancer care and treatment, sharing his own experiences to help promote good practice and secure change where needed.
Paul was joined as a Lay Member in 2023 by Natasha Dawson and Jayne Lees.
“I discovered I was a carrier 20 years, as was my mum, and I underwent preventative surgery,” she said. “This has affected family members in varying degrees, though we are lucky that medical advances have enabled us to live well.
“I feel that my personal experiences will help me to ensure that the patient voice is heard and that I can hopefully make a difference to improving cancer pathways in our region.”
Natasha, pictured below right, works for the Ella Dawson Foundation, a national charity set up in memory of her sister Ella who died of leukaemia aged just 24. The Foundation provides wellbeing support for young adults with cancer and their families, during and post treatment.
She has also been involved in setting up 5K Your Way Move Against Cancer in West Yorkshire – a initiative that inspires and empowers people affected by cancer to live an active and fulfilling life.
During her treatment, Ella set out how to shape a blueprint of how young adults with cancer could be better supported holistically, and the charity was born.
Natasha added: “I am passionate about doing all I can to improve the experience of cancer patients, particularly young people.”
Jason Pawluk, Programme Director of the Cancer Alliance, said: “We are honoured to have Paul, Jayne and Natasha on our Board. Their considerable experience and diverse backgrounds will bring added strength and vision as we work to deliver the strategic early diagnosis and survival goals set out in the national cancer strategy.”
We are always looking for new panel members.
Learn more about the work of our community/patient panel across all Cancer Alliance workstreams and how you can get involved.
Patient surveys allow us to:
- Capture the patient voice
- Monitor progress
- Improve the quality of care
We monitor, gather and review the outcomes of national patient surveys to identify the needs of people affected by cancer across West Yorkshire and Harrogate.
This insight and evidence is then used to ensure the way in which we plan, develop and transform our services best meets their needs.
- The National Cancer Patient Experience Survey (NCPES)
- The Under 16s National Cancer Patient Experience Survey
- The Quality of Life Survey
Other sources of data and evidence include:
- Mapping and insight carried out by other Integrated Care Board programmes and at place level
- Service improvement activity at local level
- Other work programmes, eg mental health
- Local, regional and national charities
- Cancer SMART Cancer and Digital Champions
We are grateful to the many people affected by cancer across West Yorkshire and Harrogate who share their stories and lived experience to help others facing the same journey and also to shape cancer care, treatment and services in the future.
Every Cancer Alliance Board meeting begins with a patient story, to ensure that the lived experience of people affected by cancer remains at the forefront of the discussions and decision-making.
Our Patient Experience Strategy and Improvement Group - or PESIG for short - is a sub group of the Cancer Alliance Board and meets every two months.
The group acts as a strategy and operations group for cancer patient experience, looking at the entirety of the cancer patient journey and access to services, including signs and symptoms awareness; screening; primary care; secondary care; diagnostics; palliative care and end of life. It focuses on the effective gathering of patient experience and using it to drive tangible service improvement and tackle health inequalities.
Members of the group look at how data, intelligence and collective experience can be used to make a real difference to experience of cancer care; determine priorities and make recommendations for action. This may include promoting examples of best practice as well as identifying areas for potential improvement and making recommendations for action.
Where appropriate, issues can be referred to the Cancer Alliance Board, and similarly, issues from the Board can be referred back to the group for consideration/action, and/or fed back into local places and organisations in the wider health and car system via individual representative Board members.
The Cancer Alliance delivers the cancer priority programme of the West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board. The work of the new group will contribute to the wider population health and tackling health inequalities agenda, including Core20PLUS5. This is an NHS England/NHS Improvement national approach to support the reduction of health inequalities at both national and system level.
Patients largely do not experience cancer care and services in isolation. The work of the group therefore informs – and is informed by – other workstreams of the West Yorkshire Integrated Care Board, including primary care; mental health and planned care.
The Cancer Alliance also undertakes structured programmes of patient and public engagement to support specific business objectives - for example, the ongoing development of a sustainable model for non surgical oncology services in West Yorkshire and Harrogate.
