Communications and Engagement
The programme is responsible for raising the Cancer Alliance’s profile, enhancing its reputation, and linking the Cancer Alliance with a number of stakeholders.
Note: This page is currently under construction - please check back at a later date.
The Communications and Engagement team links the Cancer Alliance with a number of stakeholders including:
• Patients
• Members of the public
• Local and national media
• MPs and health overview and scrutiny committees
• Partner organisations and their staff
• Partners from the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector
Objectives

Awareness campaigns
NHS England requires cancer alliances to complement national NHS campaigns with localised activity to increase cancer symptom awareness and encourage cancer screening take-up among local communities.
The Cancer Alliance also delivers campaigns tied to awareness months for the following cancers – bowel, breast, cervical, lung and prostate; and the three cancer screening programmes – cervical, breast and bowel cancer.
During campaign work, the team provides media packages, including press releases [insert link] and multimedia content, to support journalists. To further increase reach, we use paid media activity, which is focused on areas with lower screening uptake, complemented by community engagement with local partners.
Patient engagement and involvement
Involving cancer patients, as experts by lived experience, is crucial for developing better services - this is a priority for the alliance.
Our Patient and Public Representation Group ensures the patient voice is at the heart of everything we do. Our representatives are involved in sitting on programme boards, raising awareness at engagement events and participating in recruitment panels.
We always actively recruiting people with lived experience of cancer to join – lived experience could mean either as a patient or the carer of someone with a cancer diagnosis.


Patient experience of care
We work with systems and trusts to ensure they use insight and feedback to deliver co-produced quality improvement action plans to improve experience of care.
Each year, we take a deep-dive analysis of the latest cancer patient experience survey (CPES) results on behalf of the acute trusts providing cancer services in our area.
The analysis helps to demonstrate to our nine clinical delivery groups (CDGs) where services are performing well in terms of patient experience of care and where action is required to improve this.
Corporate communications and engagement activity
For the past two years, the Cancer Alliance has held annual conferences to celebrate the work that is taking place across the Humber and North Yorkshire area to improve the diagnosis, treatment and care for cancer patients.
Each year we produce an annual report, summarising and reflecting on the plethora of work which has been carried out during the previous 12 months. Click here to read last year’s annual report.


Latest news
The Communications and Engagement programme plays a key role in keeping the public and stakeholders informed about important updates and news from the Cancer Alliance, as well as raising its profile.
The team regularly creates and distributes media releases to local and regional press outlets, ensuring relevant information reaches the communities it serves.
Click here to read our latest news.