The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre and Cheshire and Merseyside Cancer Alliance (CMCA) have been selected as finalists in more national awards for their partnership working to improve urgent cancer care.
The urgent cancer care programme, which was developed at The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre and is now led by CMCA, has been shortlisted in two categories of the Picker Experience Network (PEN) Awards 2025, the only UK awards that are totally focused on patient experience.
The Clatterbridge / CMCA urgent cancer care programme has been shortlisted for the:
- Cancer Experience of Care Award, and the
- Partnership Working to Improve the Experience Award
Urgent cancer care is a crucial part of most people's cancer journey. For some people, it can even start there with a diagnosis of cancer that comes completely out of the blue after going to an emergency department feeling extremely unwell or in severe pain.
People with cancer who go to an emergency department (ED) are four times more likely to be admitted to hospital than someone without cancer, even if an acute hospital might not be the best setting for them.
That's why the Cheshire and Merseyside urgent cancer programme has been looking at how urgent and emergency care can be improved for people with cancer, and make sure people get the right care in the right place at the right time. Doing this also improves urgent and emergency care for everyone else, including hospital staff.
The urgent cancer care programme was established by The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre and is now project-managed and led by Cheshire and Merseyside Cancer Alliance. Clatterbridge staff are still a very big part of it, including Chief Executive Joan Spencer, who chairs the Urgent Cancer Care Programme Board. The programme includes partners from across Cheshire and Merseyside such as acute trusts and primary care.
Key achievements include:
- Reducing cancer patient attendance at emergency departments (ED) by increasing referrals into more suitable alternatives such as same day emergency care (SDEC) and urgent community response (UCR).
- Enhancing The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre's Hotline service including triage, reducing waiting times, and signposting patients to ED alternatives such as SDEC and UCR.
- Transforming acute oncology with new data capture tools.
- Significantly improving the pathways for patients with suspected or diagnosed metastatic spinal cord compression (MSCC)
- Significantly improving the brain / malignancy of unknown origin (MUO) pathway
Entries linked to the urgent cancer programme have also been shortlisted for five Nursing Times Awards 2025.
Chief Executive Joan Spencer said:
The teams at The Clatterbridge Cancer Centre, Cheshire and Merseyside Cancer Alliance and our urgent cancer care partners across the system have put a huge amount of work into improving pathways for people with cancer who need urgent and emergency cancer care, and they are delivering fantastic results.
It's great to see all that work recognised by being shortlisted for the PEN Awards, as well as a number of other awards this year.
The urgent cancer care teams will find out if they have won at the PEN Awards ceremony in Birmingham on Thursday 2 October 2025. CMCA are also shortlisted in the Patient Contribution and Personalisation of Care categories for other projects.
Read more about the PEN Awards 2025 and find the full shortlist.
