NEWS & EVENTS

Looking Ahead – An Important Update on Our Future

As many of you will know, the NHS is entering a period of change with the rollout of its 10-Year Plan. While this brings exciting opportunities, it also creates a lot of uncertainty for some long-established healthcare services — including those we work closely with.

Because of this, the Trustees of Yorkshire Cancer Community have decided to pause recruitment for the Manager role. Although our current funding is secure for the next year, we feel it’s only fair to wait until we have a clearer picture before asking someone new to take on such a key position without long-term security.

The good news is that Jill has kindly agreed to continue in her role and will no longer be stepping back this Autumn. We’re incredibly grateful for her dedication and steady leadership during this time.

Yorkshire Cancer Community is still very much here for you — delivering Cancer SMART, Patient VIEW, our monthly newsletters, an ever-growing website, and helping people find the support and opportunities they need.

Thank you for your continued support. If you have any fundraising skills or creative ideas that could help us build a more sustainable future, we’d love to hear from you!

We are PEN Awards 2025 finalists!

We are delighted to share the news that we have been chosen as finalists for the PEN Awards 2025, and we couldn’t feel prouder!

The Picker Experience Network Awards are the first and only awards programme to recognise best practice in patient experience across all facets of health and social care in the UK and beyond.

We have been chosen for the category Partnership Working to Improve the Experience for our collaboration with the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Cancer Alliance on the Cancer SMART project.

The awards ceremony will take place in October 2025, and we’re incredibly proud to be nominated. We’ll let you know how we get on.

Find out more about the PEN Awards 2025

Dr Stewart Manning sponsors Ella Dawson Foundation t-shirt competition

The Ella Dawson Foundation, a charity that offers support to young people aged 18-30 with a cancer diagnosis, are running a t-shirt competition to help raise vital funds.

The competition, “Tee Me There” is being sponsored by our chairman Dr Stewart Manning, in memory of a patient of his – Steven Tottie. Here’s what Stewart said about him:-

“I looked after many people as a doctor, but one person is always prominent in my memories, and he was the bravest patient that it was my privilege to meet.

He has been a major inspiration for my charity work

His name was Steven Tottie, and I diagnosed his childhood leukaemia. After chemotherapy he had a bone marrow transplant. Unfortunately, he had a comparatively rare outcome. He developed “Graft Versus Host Reaction +”. This is where the foreign bone marrow attacks the patient’s body. Failure is more commonly due to the patient rejecting the donor bone marrow.

This outcome left Steve with multiple severe medical problems. He never complained and whenever I saw him on a regular basis, he was cheerful and positive. He grew up into adulthood with these problems. During his long illness there were no specific charities specifically for young adults aged 18 to 30 who had cancer. I know if The Ella Dawson Foundation had existed during these times it would have made a great difference to Steve’s quality of life.

Steve made me a painted Canvas of Rock Bands (because he knew of my musical tastes) which hung in my GP surgery for many years and now has pride of place in my office. After Steve passed away, he left me one of his treasured possessions in his will along with a note that still brings tears to my eyes. His final message to me was “You are one of the good guys”.

My bequest was an “Alien” which resides next to the canvas in my office.

I am proud to be an ambassador for The Ella Dawson Foundation and I am delighted to sponsor the Ella Dawson t-shirt competition in his memory.”

If you want to find out more and join in the fun, please click the button below.

There’s £350 worth of cash prizes for the most unique, creative and fun photos, so what are you waiting for?

Entries are open until 24 August 2025, so don’t delay – order your t-shirt today and have some fun. Good luck!

Find out more about the T-shirt Competition

Dr Stewart Manning joins the Ella Dawson Foundation

Our chairman Dr Stewart Manning has become a new ambassador for the Ella Dawson Foundation, a charity dedicated to helping young adults with a cancer diagnosis. Here’s what Stewart had to say about his new role.

I am a retired General Practitioner, having worked in South Leeds for most of my career. During that time, I also served as Medical Officer to Leeds United AFC from 1978 to 1990 and delivered Occupational Health Services to a variety of West Yorkshire businesses.

Although I retired in 2012, I badly missed contact with people. This led me to continue being involved in community and health-related work. I was an Ambassador for The Robert Sinclair Davidson Foundation for four years before becoming a Trustee and Chairman of a local charity, The Yorkshire Cancer Community. Through this role, I help deliver a programme called CANCER SMART, which educates people about cancer screening, healthy living, and the importance of knowing your own body.

Cancer has affected me deeply throughout my life – through family, friends, and many of my patients. Because of this, I also volunteer and fundraise for my local hospice in Leeds, St Gemma’s, and support the work of Macmillan and Pancreatic Cancer UK.

Yorkshire Cancer Community is funded by the Harrogate and West Yorkshire Cancer Alliance. It was during a Teams meeting that I first met Tasha Dawson, who is a lay member of the Board. After the meeting, I looked up the Ella Dawson Foundation, of which Tasha is a founder and Trustee. I was so impressed by their work helping young adults aged 18 to 30 with cancer that I contacted them straight away to arrange a meeting.

Stewart new ambassador of Ella Dawson Foundation with Jane and Tasha Dawson

In February this year, I volunteered at their Ball. When I met up again with Tasha and Jane, they invited me to work with the Ella Dawson Foundation as an Ambassador. I accepted immediately, as the help given by this charity resonates with the difficulties I faced as a GP looking after a young man with cancer 25 years ago – when there were no organisations offering holistic support to this age group.

I feel I can bring my enthusiasm and experience to this charity.

My ethos is:

“One person cannot change the world, but anyone can change the world for one person.”

YCA.</p>
<p>Church House meeting, 26 Sept 2024.</p>
<p>© Victor De Jesus

SEE MORE ABOUT THE LAUNCH HERE

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT PATIENT VIEW HERE

Relaunch of Community Patient Panel

On 26 September 2024 we relaunched the Community Patient Panel.

Our local cancer services benefit greatly from the knowledge and experience of patients, caregivers, and members of the public.

You can get involved with the panel in a variety of ways with us.

We are working with West Yorkshire and Harrogate Cancer Alliance (WYHCA) to make improvements, develop new ideas and ensure the patient VIEW is at the heart of everything we do.

The community panel is just one of the ways in which WYHCA is working with those affected by cancer across the area – patients and their families and carers – to ensure their experiences and views influence the Alliance work and the decisions they take. Panel members are involved through face to face sessions; online discussions, sharing views and ideas by email; one to one telephone calls and flexibly in other ways that work best for them. Tackling health inequality across West Yorkshire and Harrogate (the avoidable differences that exist in people’s health and treatment outcomes between different groups and communities) is a high priority for the Cancer Alliance and for the Yorkshire Cancer Community. To support us in this work, we want to ensure the membership of the panel is as diverse as possible, in terms of where people live; the type(s) of cancer they are experiencing or have experienced, the communities they come from and their personal backgrounds and circumstances. If you would like to join the panel, or learn more, email lauren@yorkshirecancercommunity.co.uk

OUR ONLINE GROUPS

Cancer SMART talk A4 flyer - coming soon

New for 2025!

Join us for our online Cancer SMART talk!

Email info@yorkshirecancercommunity.co.uk for more details

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NEWS STORIES

Newsletter Summer 2018

May 16, 2018

Hello and welcome to the summer edition of the Yorkshire Cancer Patient Forum newsletter. If you are new to the Forum – perhaps you have picked this newsletter up in a Hospital waiting room or Macmillan Information Point – let us explain our aims. Download...