Greater Manchester Cancer Alliance

Wishing all our colleagues, partners, patient and carer representatives and followers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Thank you to everyone who supported our work in 2024 at the Alliance. See you in 2025!

As we approach the end of 2024, we are reflecting on just a few of the highlights of the work that the team have done over the year. 👏 First up is our CRUK Talk Cancer training days, set up to boost confidence in discussing cancer within communities. The workshops were a huge success. Well done, team! To mark National #AHPsDay on 14 October, we united the cancer AHP community for the first time, celebrating their vital contributions to supporting those affected by cancer. This included social media, toolkits, videos, webinars, and a podcast episode. In July we thanked 20,000 participants from Greater Manchester for taking part in the NHS Galleri Trial – the world’s largest research trial of a multi-cancer early detection blood test. Hospitals in Greater Manchester have started to use a new AI (artificial intelligence) technology to help doctors to detect diseases, including lung cancer, quicker. A big success for 2024, well done to everyone involved. Our #ThisVanCan project hit the road again, inviting people on board to learn how to spot bowel cancer and get info on screening. The touring van aims to help people recognize potential bowel cancer symptoms earlier. In 2024, users have logged 50,000 CPD hours and completed 1,543 modules through our Greater Manchester Cancer Academy. The Academy supports lifelong learning across all care settings, ensuring our workforce is equipped to deliver the best patient care. May 2024 saw the return of the flagship Greater Manchester Cancer Conference and Awards, bringing together our cancer system and partners to share best practices, update on the latest priorities and developments, and showcase new innovations. Huge congratulations to our teams who have won awards this year. We couldn’t be prouder of the work that goes on across the alliance to improve cancer care for the people of Greater Manchester. The Greater Manchester Single Queue Diagnostics initiative allows patients to choose the earliest available diagnostic appointment across Greater Manchester, regardless of hospital reducing waiting times, ensuring equity in access, and maximising capacity. The second Metastatic Breast Cancer Conference in October brought colleagues together to network, share best practices, and raise awareness of Metastatic Breast Cancer. 70 delegates attended, spanning 9 professional groups and 12 Cancer Alliances. Our colorectal pathway board developed an on-demand webinar to help endoscopists objectively identify upper and lower gastrointestinal cancers. The webinar has already received over 1,000 views. We expanded our Targeted Lung Health Checks in #GreaterManchester 2024. This has allowed us to diagnose over 700 lung cancers so far – most at the earliest stage when the cancer is much more treatable. #GMCancerHighlights2024

We’re delighted to have our second “This Van Can” initiative on the road, this time raising awareness about the signs and symptoms of bowel cancer. Our early diagnosis team and colorectal pathway board worked together with patient groups and a key range of stakeholders to put together a roadshow delivering important messages related to the early diagnosis of bowel cancer to the general public. The messaging includes not only signs and symptoms of bowel cancer, but also the importance of the bowel screening programme. Branding for the van is brightly coloured and features a range of cartoon imagery encouraging visitors to #JoinTheBowelMovement. It is hoped that the fun design can help reduce embarrassment and encourage people to be more open when talking about their bowels. Specially trained ambassadors onboard the van can engage with the public to deliver the key messaging, encouraging those with worrying symptoms to see their GP. The van is also stocked with a variety of informational bowel cancer leaflets and other assets to support in the delivery of the aims. The van has been on the road since the end of November and will continue its tour until the end of April 2025. It will visit each locality for 2 consecutive weeks, delivering 3 events per week across Thursday, Friday and Saturday. High footfall sites (supermarkets and shopping areas) in areas with a greater density of late-stage diagnosis have been targeted for maximum engagement. For more information, including dates and venues, please visit www.thisvancan.co.uk #thisvancan #jointhebowelmovement

Do you want to know more about the Targeted Lung Health Check programme and its roll out in Greater Manchester? Oliver Butterworth, Senior Programme Manager for Early Diagnosis and the Targeted #LungHealthCheck programme at Greater Manchester Cancer Alliance, has been talking to non-clinical healthcare professionals at an event with GatewayC recently. He was interviewed by Dr Sarah Taylor, Greater Manchester Cancer Alliance Associate Medical Director for Early Diagnosis and Primary Care, about the work. You can find out more about the programme here:  https://lnkd.in/eAaTNWED #GreaterManchester #cancer #lungcancer

Together, our partners are #MakingADifference by providing essential preventative health education to improve community health and well-being. Launched last month, Greater Manchester Cancer Alliance’s latest mobile unit aims to help people recognise the signs and symptoms of bowel cancer. The roadshow is touring high streets and supermarket car parks across Greater Manchester - encouraging communities to #JoinTheBowelMovement. This important initiative aims to raise awareness of colorectal cancer and promote participation in the faecal immunochemical testing (FIT) programme, a vital tool for early detection. 📍Over the next six months, the van will visit all 10 boroughs in Greater Manchester, targeting areas with a higher density of late-stage diagnoses 📍The project will offer three events per week in high-footfall areas, with specially trained ambassadors on board to engage the public 📍The goal is to help empower communities most at risk by raising awareness and providing educational resources Dr Roger Prudham, Lead Cancer Clinician, Northern Care Alliance NHS Group, commented on the need for the outreach project:  “In some of our boroughs, 50-60% of people have early-stage cancer when we diagnose them, but in some areas, only 35% of people present to us with stage 1 and stage 2 bowel cancer. We think we can do much better than that, but we can’t do better unless you start people talking and get that conversation going.” The initiative follows the success of the #ThisVanCan Prostate Cancer Awareness project, which concluded last year. You can read more here: https://lnkd.in/etT2BhxY Let’s work together to ensure everyone has the knowledge and opportunity to better protect their health. #BowelScreening #HealthEquity #CancerAwareness #MakingADifference #ThisVanCan #FITTesting

Our diagnostics, digital and innovation clinical lead Dr Rhidian Bramley has been blogging about how #AI is being implemented at scale and pace in #GreaterManchester. Dr Bramley, who is also consultant radiologist at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, argues the need for AI is urgent as means to augment and support a workforce under pressure. Read his article in Health Tech World ▶ How can NHS diagnostic imaging adopt AI more quickly?

Last week, Alison Foxley, Alison Barbuti and Dan Clark took part in a Q&A session at the GatewayC Cancer Forum, discussing public and patient facing communications and some exciting new campaigns launching soon….   We had a range of printed materials from various projects and campaigns for people to take back to their practices. Thank you to everyone who filled up a goodie bag!   Did you know we have a new campaign resource centre with various communication resources for healthcare professionals to use on their own channels? You can find it here: https://lnkd.in/eCPH3JCu   If you would like to request any printed materials or if you would like to be added to our mailing list, please email the communications team: gmcancer.comms@nhs.net

Earlier this year, #GreaterManchester became the first region to deploy Annalise.ai's tech under a new initiative to enhance healthcare delivery. Impressively, this milestone was reached just 2-3 weeks after the contract was signed—far quicker than the typical timelines for such projects. The Annalise.ai algorithm was designed to support healthcare professionals in reading chest X-rays and identifying lung cancer at an earlier stage. What makes this deployment stand out is the speed at which technical assurances were completed. What often takes 1 or 2 years was achieved in just a matter of weeks. This fast-tracked implementation has raised an important question: how did they make it happen? As more healthcare systems explore #AI adoption, Dr Rhidian Bramley, consultant radiologist at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust, and diagnostics, digital & innovation clinical lead for the Greater Manchester Cancer Alliance, experience offers valuable insights into streamlining processes while maintaining the necessary checks and balances. https://lnkd.in/ejum9DQK

Thank you Farida, Maria, Mike, Russ, and Tracey, our patient and carer representatives for being the face of a new campaign to encourage more people affected by cancer to volunteer as patient or carer representatives. 👏 Hearing from people affected by cancer helps us to better understand what patients want and how services can be improved. Learn more about the campaign: https://bit.ly/40TMrbw #GMCancerVoices

#ICYMI 📣 Our Single Queue Diagnostic project - which has helped to reduced waiting times for patients with suspected cancer - has been Highly Commended for Driving Efficiency through Technology at the prestigious national #HSJAwards 🌟🎉 The Single Queue Diagnostics Pathway is a new service for people that need specialist tests to help find out what’s going on with their health. For some people this will be a very difficult time because the test is looking for possible cancer. Led by the Alliance, hospitals in Greater Manchester are now working together to provide the quickest and the best care to every patient no matter where they live. It means that patients who need certain types of further tests are able to have the first appointment that’s available, even if it’s not at their usual hospital. Well done to all our staff and partners who have worked on this programme. 👏👏 You can read more about the work behind the award and see details of our other finalists here ▶ https://lnkd.in/eYuMN-7h