Cancer Alliances look at the care and support patient populations should expect to receive, from diagnosis to post-treatment, so we can address variations in treatment and care provision to ensure equal access and implement best practice. NHS England provides Cancer Alliances with funding, support and guidance to assist in their work.

We work as an improvement collaborative comprising the 5 East Midlands Integrated Care Systems. Together with our GP practice teams, hospital teams, cancer clinicians, commissioning teams, public health teams, community teams, we are working to improve the experience of care and cancer outcomes for our local communities. That’s from the earliest detection of cancer through, delivering the modern evidence-based treatments leading to the best possible clinical outcomes and people living well with and beyond their cancer diagnosis.

East Midlands Cancer Alliance also works closely with a range of voluntary organisations such as Maggie's, Macmillan and Cancer Research UK and local community groups including Healthwatch.

We are also working with our primary and secondary care colleagues, bringing clinicians together to develop a wide range of rapid diagnostic and assessment cancer pathways which will provide the blueprint for best practice care delivery. The importance of this is:

1. Timely access to cancer treatment is important in relation to cancer survival, as well as post-treatment quality of life.
2. This rules out cancer as soon as possible, putting a person’s mind at rest and organising the right treatment where needed for any non-cancer conditions.

Receiving a cancer diagnosis can be a frightening experience for patients and their families. The Alliance works together with our clinical teams to support patients through what is often a complex series of treatments and care. The Alliance is able to direct resources to support patients and their families through improving access to information, supporting dedicated support from clinical nursing teams and care navigators and we are also developing new ways of offering psychological support to those in need through the use of videocalls.