On World Cancer Day it’s important to remember that cancer doesn’t have boundaries and neither does The Christie - Sophie Kennedy

Sophie Kennedy, Head of International Business Development

Sophie Kennedy

On World Cancer Day it’s important to remember that cancer doesn’t have boundaries and neither does The Christie.

I love working at The Christie, it is unlike any hospital where I have worked or indeed, been a patient. The friendliness and caring approach of the staff and the time they are more than willing to give is exceptional. Alongside this we achieve fantastic clinical outcomes that help drive The Christie’s world class reputation, delivered by experts in their field that are able to ensure our patients are receiving the most appropriate treatment for them. 

That may sound like it is pulled from a marketing brochure but I speak from personal experience. I was diagnosed with skin cancer in the summer of last year. I was very lucky that we had caught it early and my treatment was successful. It enabled me to experience our services first hand so I know what I am talking about when I describe them to others and I am passionate about ensuring we are able to continue to deliver these amazing services.

On World Cancer Day it’s important to remember that cancer doesn’t have boundaries and neither does The Christie. We are lucky enough to attract some of the brightest minds and best clinicians from around the world to Manchester. We constantly reach out and look at what we can learn from others around the world and are very pleased to be part of a global community working together to provide the best services to patients worldwide and to further the battle against cancer.

We first developed our International strategy in 2013; it aims to promote The Christie’s concept of comprehensive cancer care internationally, deliver philanthropic support overseas and also to work with commercial partners in healthcare organisations globally to assist them to provide world class cancer services which are comparable to ours.

The Christie’s experience and skill of developing treatments and providing services for over 100 years in one of the largest radiotherapy centres internationally, the largest chemotherapy unit in the UK and using some of the most advanced surgical techniques means we are able to offer consulting services to other organisations who wish to set up similar services. We have recently been named as the most technologically advanced cancer centre outside North America, and we have also been rated as outstanding by the Care Quality Commission. 

Over the last three years we have reached far and wide across the globe and have worked with clients from many countries including:

• Australia 
• Bangladesh
• Canada
• Egypt
• Hong Kong
• India
• Iraq 
• Italy
• New Zealand
• Oman
• Singapore
• Sri Lanka

Our international services can be delivered in a number of ways. Sometimes we send our staff out to consult and to train within the overseas organisation, and other times clients have come to The Christie, either for observerships or for education and training. 

I have worked at The Christie for two years and have been promoting the international work over the last year. My aim is to build on the strong partnerships that we already have in the Trust with companies such as HCA for providing our private patient services; Alliance Medical for providing our PET CT imaging and Boots for our pharmacy service. All these partnerships provide essential additional income for the Trust, and help to support our services as NHS budgets come under increasing pressure.  

I have been working with a variety of teams across the Trust in order to pull a number of key products together that we can offer to our potential clients throughout the world. We have started with the following but will be looking to build on this in the future:

• Strategic consultancy
• Radiotherapy and chemotherapy service design 
• Education and training
• Second opinion consultancy service
• Quality review

Each product can be offered independently or as part of a package. 

We will continue to work across the Trust developing products that we will promote through a variety of channels like the British embassies abroad, government organisations such as Healthcare UK and the UK International Healthcare Management Association (UKIHMA) and through partnerships with other healthcare and consultancy providers.

As I said when I started this blog, I love working at The Christie and I am so very lucky in my current job to be working alongside so many people who have a passion for their work too. Professors, doctors, radiotherapists, nurses, researchers, scientists, educators and project managers who are not only leading experts in their fields but who also have a passion for spreading The Christie’s expertise globally. 

If you’d like to get in touch to have a chat about our international work then please drop me a line at sophie.kennedy@christie.nhs.uk or if you would like to read our marketing brochure feel free to take a look at our website where you will be able to access The Christie International video and brochure.

Staff engagement is central to providing quality patient care, and this is at the heart of The Christie Commitment - Victoria Hughes

Victoria Hughes, principal radiographer and Christie Commitment champion

Victoria Hughes

I have been principal radiographer in The Christie radiology department since September 2015. My role involves supporting the radiology services manager, clinical director and business manager with the management of the radiology service, which includes plain film X-ray, interventional radiology, ultrasound, CT and MRI scanning, as well as providing nuclear medicine and PET/CT reporting. 

We undertake over 55,000 examinations and interventional procedures per year, imaging patients for diagnosis or post treatment follow-up, or as part of clinical trials.

I am also departmental lead for governance, ensuring maintenance of quality throughout the department and responding to any clinical incidents or patient concerns, to make sure we learn from these to constantly improve our service and maintain high standards.

I felt lucky to have the opportunity to come back to the Trust, having previously worked here as a diagnostic radiographer from 1996-2007. The radiology service has grown substantially since then. Since returning, it’s been an exciting time with a new purpose built 3 scanner MRI suite opening last summer, vastly improving the patient experience. The opening of the Integrated Procedures Unit (IPU) later this year, incorporating a new two room interventional radiology suite and ultrasound room, will enable us to integrate more closely with other teams to create a more seamless patient service.

Staff numbers have also increased, with over 100 staff including radiologists, diagnostic radiographers, radiology nurses, radiographic aides, porters, clinical trials team, picture archiving and communications systems (PACS) manager, and secretarial/clerical support. Despite this, the department has retained its close knit family feel and team spirit, and what makes both radiology and the wider Trust such a special place to work is the positive atmosphere and motivation to put patients first which remains constant.

The Trust recognises the importance of staff engagement to this sense of team working and patient centeredness, and developed a set of pledges collectively known as The Christie Commitment, aiming to help staff appreciate how much of a difference they make to patients. On starting in post I was asked to submit a monthly report to our divisional board outlining how the radiology department was meeting the commitment. The pledges cover the areas of:

• Achievement and recognition – thanking staff for doing a good job, and rewarding those who go the extra mile
• Learning and development – ensuring opportunities for personal development and career progression
• Healthy workplace – supporting health and wellbeing of staff and promoting a culture where staff feel able to raise concerns
• Communication and engagement – Good communication processes and staff involvement in decisions affecting them or their service
• Proud of The Christie – aims for staff to be advocates of The Christie both as a place to be cared for and to work, sharing patient feedback, the work of The Christie charity and results of research

I thought it important that all department staff had an opportunity to contribute so began sending a monthly e-mail request to all staff for items to include. Staff positively engaged with this which inspired me to find out more about The Christie Commitment and how we could support this within the department. So I volunteered to become a Christie Commitment champion, one of a team of staff from different departments and professions dedicated to raising awareness of the commitment and staff engagement.

Being a champion involves attending a quarterly Christie Commitment forum, as well as informal lunch-time catch ups in between, for updates on staff engagement events and activities, sharing ideas between departments, and promoting these within our own areas.

Although voluntary, this has also helped in my formal role, increasing knowledge of the Trust through networking with staff I may not otherwise have met, promoting engagement between departments, and providing opportunities to become involved with activities in the wider Trust. These include the staff summer garden party, annual health and wellbeing day, and speaking to new staff at Trust induction about The Christie Commitment and values.

I was fortunate that radiology already had effective engagement processes through regular staff meetings, good communication between team leaders and other staff, and an open door policy for staff to come and raise concerns. We have regular lunchtime education sessions and an early morning journal club. These are organised and run by members of staff and are well attended. We also support professional study leave and attendance at study days and courses for staff development at all levels.

Producing monthly Christie Commitment updates have enabled us to build on this further, with it becoming not only a feedback tool to the Trust about engagement in the department, but a document shared back with the radiology team. In the update we celebrate each other’s achievements, advertise any learning and development  or health and well-being events, and one of the most important elements – ensure all staff are aware of compliments and positive patient feedback, as not all can attend staff meetings each month.

It means a huge amount to us to receive positive comments via patient letters, cards or surveys, as it is so rewarding and motivating to know that the commitment of staff really does make a difference.

As managers in radiology we value staff feedback and ideas for improvement and periodically undertake a departmental staff survey. The most recent in May 2016, identified ideas we were able to action, such as employing an additional porter to improve patient flow and reduce delays, and implementing a staff suggestion box.

Kim Jones, Nazir Majeed and Victoria Hughes

We also encourage staff to take part in the ‘One Week, All Staff’ events run by the Trust, to feed back directly at Trust level, as well as the wider NHS staff surveys. We have added a Christie Commitment section to the monthly staff meeting agenda, to enable sharing of feedback on staff suggestions, and engagement events news from the Commitment forum.

Through promoting the role of the Christie Commitment champions we now have two further volunteers from the department, representing different staff groups within radiology – Kim Jones, radiology specialist nurse and Nazir Majeed, radiographic aide, which is further helping us to engage both with the radiology team and other staff across the Trust.

The radiology team were delighted with the Trust’s recent ‘Outstanding’ CQC result and are extremely proud to have been able to contribute towards this, as it reflects the ethos of the Trust and its commitment to its patients, but also to its staff, which is emphasised within the pledges of The Christie commitment.

For further information about The Christie commitment please email thechristiecommitment@christie.nhs.uk or contact Carol Reah on 0161 446 8423.

So what is a TNA? - Claire Barnes

Claire Barnes, Trainee Nursing Associate

Claire Barnes

To me it sounds like the beginning of a cheerleader chant so, combine that with a biscuit coloured uniform and we’re good to go! The irony of a biscuit coloured uniform and the link I made to hobnobs might send you running for a brew however, as anyone familiar with Peter Kay will tell you hobnobs are the hard-core dunking biscuits… persistent and refuse to crumble under pressure. I think that describes TNA’S perfectly. 

TNA is short for Trainee Nursing Associate and out of 1,700 applicants nationally, 240 were appointed, and nine of them are based here at The Christie. I am fortunate to be one of those nine. The TNA role has been introduced to help to meet the needs of a changing population within the modern NHS. 

The Nursing Associate will work under the direction of a fully qualified Registered Nurse (RN). The Nursing Associate is not a Registered Nurse but will undertake some of the duties that a RN currently undertakes, enabling the Registered Nurse to spend more time on the assessment and care associated with both complex needs and advances in treatments.

You might be wondering what prompted me to become a cheerleading biscuit coloured TNA. To answer that we need to rewind a little.

Until a couple of years ago, I had never been to The Christie. Life however is full of curve balls and the one I got thrown came with a diagnosis of ovarian cancer for my mum. 
Unfortunately for mum, her cancer had advanced too far and we lost her in April 2015. At the time, I was a home working admin bod and juggled my work and home life together. 

I had been genuinely amazed (I still am) by the care and support both my mum and our family received during her hospital stay. The Christie is a unique environment where despite the somewhat scary circumstances, patients can feel at ease. To put it simply, the people who work at The Christie are wonderful, caring souls and the hospital is something to be proud to be a part of. 

I decided that if I was going to work in admin I’d like to do it at The Christie and give something back. “I want to become a small cog in a big machine that makes a difference to people’s lives on a daily basis” was exactly what I put on my application form when I applied to work here. 

The small cog theory led me to a clerical role based in the endocrine unit. It was a rewarding job and a very friendly team but I quickly realised that I had a desire to play a more hands on role in patient care. This led me to apply for a role as Health Care Assistant (HCA) or a switch to the dark side as I often joke with my colleagues Jen and Steph on reception. As an HCA in endocrinology I become a mini Dracula (taking lots of blood samples from patients). When one of the nurses on the unit pulled me to one side to show me the TNA role advertisement I was intrigued. It was an amazing opportunity not to be missed. 

If you have ever tried to make yourself sound snazzy in 200 words, you’ll know it can be somewhat mission impossible, however that’s the exact amount I had when completing the expression of interest form to be a TNA. I half debated just writing in big text PICK ME!! but was persuaded against that idea and instead opted for something along the lines of “The Nursing Associate Training programme is an amazing opportunity, not only to expand my clinical skills but also to widen my knowledge of various NHS areas, draw from the knowledge gained and apply it to whichever role I undertake.”

Prior to my interview, I directed so many questions to the ward sister Alex and the diabetes nurse Louise, that I am convinced they cringed every time I popped my head round their office door (they didn’t). Their support and encouragement however proved invaluable and helped me to prepare for the interview. After a wait that seemed like forever, I was still surprised when I got the call to say I had been successful!

On Wednesday 4th January I attended a meeting where I got to meet my fellow TNA’s, all from different areas within the hospital. We introduced ourselves, a little about how we got where we were and then learned more about the role. It is still very much a work in progress. 

As the TNA role is a pilot, some of the finer details are still being worked out, such as the community placements and the colour of our uniform has only just been decided (I am still not sure why pink was unpopular!) 

The TNA role begins on January 30th working full time, with Wednesday allocated for university. We will spend the first six months in our original ‘base’ then rotate through three further placements, each lasting six months, taking us to a total of two years at the end of which we hopefully gain our foundation degree. 

I am looking forward to the programme, not only the prospect of developing my clinical skills but also gaining the knowledge behind the how and why of clinical practice. I would be lying if I said the prospect of university level study is not a little daunting but, I am sure with the support of my colleagues it won’t be as scary as I think. 

Our induction at Manchester Metropolitan University was on 18th of January where we met our tutors prior to commencing our roles. There is no doubt the next two years will be hard, combining work with study and home life, however it is without a doubt an exciting role to undertake and I am incredibly proud that I’ll be a part of it!

The expansion of the interventional service for our patients in 2017 is something we look forward to greatly - Alex Gosling

Alex Gosling, Radiology Lead Nurse

Alex Gosling

I have been working at The Christie, within interventional radiology as the radiology lead nurse for just over a year now and I am very lucky to say I work with such a fantastic team. We are a very small but dedicated team of three nurses who work very closely with our coordinator, radiographers and consultant radiologists with the goal of providing the very best patient care. 

Interventional radiology is where X-rays, ultrasound or CT imaging are used to guide very thin wires and catheters into specific parts of the body. This can be for both diagnostic and treatment purposes and can reduce the need for surgery or more invasive treatments. We are able to undertake a very large range of procedures ranging from ultrasound guided biopsies to vascular procedures that can give radiotherapy treatment directly into liver tumours.

Although the role of the nurses is predominantly to support the patients and assist the doctors in the provision of care during interventional procedures, we also run a unique but very successful drop in clinic with the nutritional nurse for patients who have gastrostomy feeding tubes. Within this clinic we are able to provide practical help but more importantly we are there to give support and advice at any time within the working week. We are very fortunate that we are able to build strong and trusting relationships with our patients through this service.

I have found over the last 11 years working in interventional radiology, that there is often a lack of understanding regarding the speciality, not only for patients and their relatives but also for other staff members within the hospital setting. 

As a team, in 2017, it is our intention to raise the profile of interventional radiology especially as we have a very exciting and anticipated move in April to the new integrated procedures unit (IPU). Interventional radiology will be moving to the new unit along with the procedure team, pain team, day case theatre, endoscopy and plastics. This will be a major step forward for us as a team but also for The Christie as a hospital. 

Interventional radiology nursing team

Presently, we are operating at capacity with just one interventional room. With the opening of two new rooms planned in the IPU, the service will not only expand but will have provision for undertaking more advanced and intricate procedures. The addition of the state of the art advanced 3D interventional suite will mean that we will be a European reference centre with the ability to record and live stream complex cases all over the world. 

The amount of charity work that has been carried out to enable this expansion and improvement is overwhelming and as a team we are delighted to be the subject of this year’s Christie charity ball. This can only enhance the status of interventional radiology.

Our priority is always to provide the very best patient care. We wish for our patients to have as smooth a journey as possible and for optimum outcomes to be achieved. The enormity of what we will potentially be able to achieve with the expansion of the interventional service for our patients in the future is tremendous and something we look forward to greatly. 

To find out how you can help to support the new Interventional Radiology suite please visit our fundraising page or you can help to support The Christie's new Integrated Procedures Unit. 

The Christie has helped me to make some wonderful memories this year - Suzanne England

Suzanne England

I was very honoured to be asked to speak to over 700 Christie supporters and fundraisers at the annual Christmas concert on 13th December. I want to thank The Christie for inviting me. 

I had been asked to share my experiences as a patient and to reflect on 2016, having raised a significant amount for The Christie during the year.

It was a beautiful Christmassy and uplifting night in the atmospheric Manchester Cathedral. It certainly is the most stunning building I have ever seen. 

The children's choirs were fabulous, sang their hearts out and did their families proud. Jenny Powell, of Wheel of Fortune fame, brought some real humour to the event. The professional singers and musicians were full of festive spirit. My twins were thrilled to hear Natalie McGrath again after she performed at a family wedding earlier this year. Alexander "Buble" Stewart even sang my name in his fantastic version of Feeling Good. Lucky me!

I am so happy that I managed to hold it together to deliver my speech, but having a huge hug from my twins as I came off stage nearly tipped me over the edge!!!! 

As did a little girl in the choir on the front row. She gave me a double thumbs up and the biggest smile ever (toothless just like my twins) whilst dancing around in her reindeer antlers and mini Santa hat headgear! I shed a little happy tear and felt so thankful to have shared that night with everyone there.

I was extremely touched to hear from so many of the audience that my words had given them hope to keep up the fight against cancer, and that it also inspired many to go out and play their part in raising money for The Christie, our truly world class hospital. 

If you weren't at the concert here is my story.........

2016 for me has been about making memories. It’s been about making the most of every moment but also fundraising for The Christie.

With my beautiful twin daughters Evie and Ellie and my husband Rick, we have made memory boxes, planted cherry trees for the children and visited Disneyland together. With even more exciting Christmassy things lined up in the following weeks. 

Being at the cathedral to say thank you to The Christie will be one of the biggest memories of all. That’s why my husband, twins, family and friends all came along to remember how far we have come together, forever.

Thanks to The Christie I am 5 years free of cancer this year!

I truly believe that without The Christie I would not be alive today. They saved my life many times over. For this I will be forever thankful.

Seven years ago, when I was pregnant with my twin girls, they both kicked hard at the same time and broke my ribs. That was how I discovered I had lymphoma! They are my guardian angels!

Evie and Ellie were christened on Easter Day 2010, days before my chemotherapy started.

With Hodgkins lymphoma there is a good chance of survival and this helped me and my family stay positive, looking forward to the twin’s first birthday.

But my lymphoma was aggressive. Six month’s of chemo didn’t work. I was offered intensive salvage chemo as an inpatient at The Christie, hoping this would give me long enough to hear Evie and Ellie speak their first words.

Thankfully, I responded to the treatment and was then offered a stem cell transplant, a high risk option that would potentially give me full remission.

So I spent two months in a germ free bubble on the Haematology and Transplant Unit - the darkest time I have ever experienced.

Following transplant the risk of relapse was extremely high. Luckily I qualified for a clinical trial of Brentuximab Vedotin – now licensed it is being described as the new lymphoma wonder drug. And it worked wonders for me!

For 6 years, I’ve been a patient at The Christie and have also visited most other hospitals locally. The Christie is by far the most outstanding, caring, compassionate, professional hospital. It truly is world class.

Every single member of The Christie team is talented and committed to their patients. It makes being there such a positive experience, even if you have cancer.

The Phlebotomists, Professors, Porters and Physios.

The Consultants, Care assistants, Cleaners, Chefs and Counsellors.

The Registrars, Receptionists and Radiographers.

Not forgetting the amazing Nurses, Students and Volunteers.

And a special mention for Christie bear who is my twin girls’ favourite!

All have brightened my days and helped me maintain a positive outlook.

It goes without saying of course that my lymphoma team are the best, but I’m biased!

Life after cancer is hard but it is priceless. Every second counts.

I’ve had a lot of counselling through Professor Radford’s fantastic team, and am now more able to process what has happened and how it has affected me. It’s helped me to come to terms with my “after cancer identity”, talk to friends and family about my experience and find the right words to thank the people who helped me.

Being able to speak at the Christmas concert and to say thank you to The Christie was a massive milestone for me.

Five years ago, my brother Paul and sister-in-law Grace raised £2,600 for The Christie, running the Manchester 10K! I thought this was amazing!

Five years on, 5 years cancer free, I was inspired to fundraise for The Christie aiming to raise £5,000. I’m no runner but do know how to throw a jolly good party.

I spent 6 months gathering prizes and auction items from local businesses, retailers and influential friends. 

So in July 2016 we held a massive garden party. Friends and family bought tickets, enjoyed a hog roast and bubbly, bid in the auction, danced and won prizes galore. We smashed our target of £5,000, achieving over £20,000. What a memory to have for all involved.

Not only can I now say “I did it for The Christie”, but the Lymphoma department gets funds for vital research to beat cancer sooner.

For the hospital every penny counts. Every ticket and every raffle ticket sold counts. So dig deep! I want to thank everyone who attended the Christmas concert as them just being there made a big difference.

Since having cancer, I now urge everyone to go out and live your life to the max. Enjoy every second and raise money for our world class hospital “The Christie”.

Happy Christmas everyone!

The ‘I did it for The Christie’ sporting reception was very poignant with so many heart warming stories - Natalie Dawes

Natalie Dawes, Christie patient and fundraiser

Natalie Dawes

Earlier this month, I was very honoured to be asked to speak to a group of around 70 fundraisers at an ‘I did it for The Christie’ reception for people who had taken part in sporting events during 2016 to support The Christie charity. 

The people in the room, together with thousands of others who took part in sporting events this year, had between them raised nearly £2m for this wonderful charity.

It was a very poignant and emotional night, with so many wonderful heart-warming stories of people doing amazing things to support cancer patients at The Christie, many of them patients themselves or former patients! It was a truly inspiring evening and left me more determined than ever to support this special cause.

I particularly enjoyed watching a special video showing many of these amazing fundraisers explaining why they “did it for the Christie”. 

It also meant so much to me to be asked to speak to at this event.

I was there because back in October 2016, I walked the Night of Neon for The Christie, almost exactly a year to the day since I had discovered a small breast lump.

I thought I'd better get it checked out, but having had a couple of breast cysts in the past, I was in complete shock as it dawned on me this lump might be much more serious.

My life changed forever on 15 December 2015 when I was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer at the age of 36. I'm still not really able to put into words how it felt to be given the news. There was no family history of breast cancer so it came completely out of the blue for us. 

Needless to say, Christmas was one to forget. My carefully laid plans for 2016 went out of the window. This was the year my husband and I were hoping to start our longed for family and my career as a solicitor was going from strength to strength. Now I had to face the biggest challenge yet.

Everything moved very quickly and thankfully I didn't really have time to stop and dwell on what had happened. I had to get going with treatment straight away. I elected for neo adjuvant treatment. The chemotherapy was done before surgery, so they could see if the tumour responded. The Christie was quick to get the chemotherapy underway. Despite only living a mile away from the Withington hospital, I walked into it for the very first time in my life during the first week of January. Happy new year.....

The chemo scheduler was brilliant. He arranged treatment on Fridays to fit in with my husband's work, so my husband could always come with me. My chemo ran until May 2016. These were the hardest six months of my life. Absolutely nothing can prepare you for the physical and mental challenge. Of course as I went through each treatment I became weaker and weaker, but I also knew after each session that I was one step closer to finishing it. I got a lot of satisfaction from ticking off each week on my blue appointment card. 

For me, the loss of hair was a big deal. I had an incredibly thick long mane of blonde hair before chemo, it had been this way since I was a child and it was my identity. Vanity got in the way and I decided, with the very patient help of the chemo nurses to give the cold cap treatment a go. The additional hours on the chemo ward and the agony of a freezing cold head was definitely worth it to save about 50% of my hair. It worked so well I was able to avoid wearing a wig by mastering the art of a sweep over.  It wasn't until my missing hair grew back though that I truly accepted I was not a natural blonde.

I became increasingly anxious during chemo as my veins suffered greatly and I found the whole experience of even stepping foot in The Christie extremely difficult. I was given a lot of support by an oncologist psychology nurse called Jo. One of the main things that got me through each chemo session was the hypnocalm sessions provided by the amazing complementary therapist Salma. She would visit me on the chemo ward, calm me down, massage my feet and take me on a journey to my safe place away from the stresses of treatment. I rang the end of treatment bell as hard as I possibly could after completing my last session. It was an emotional day.

Whilst I didn't have much love for chemotherapy at the time, I look back at it now and am so thankful for those drugs. They worked their magic and to my relief the tumour greatly reduced. I had a lumpectomy and lymph node biopsy in June 2016 under the care of Wythenshawe Hospital. The surgery went well and I was so happy to be told there was no evidence that the cancer had spread to my lymph nodes or surrounding blood tissue.

I was back at The Christie in July to start my 20 sessions of radiotherapy and I finally completed the treatment on 11th August 2016 when I found another bell to ring! 

I was in a much better place by then mentally, and I found coming in for radiotherapy to be very comforting, in fact I felt a bit lost when it finished, as if I was on my own then. 

It was during those daily trips to radiotherapy that I would walk past the big neon pink banner raising awareness of the Night of Neon walk. When I saw the date was the end of October I thought to myself, I'm going to make sure I am fit enough to do that walk. It fell around the one year anniversary of finding the lump so it was a significant date for me. 

Signing up for the Night of Neon pushed my rehabilitation forward and gave me something positive to focus on. It definitely helped my psychological recovery as I spent time "in training" walking around Didsbury with my dog Larry. 

I have to say that when I initially started treatment I was completely taken aback and saddened by how many patients there were waiting for treatment at the Oak Road Treatment Centre. But as time went by I started to think about it in a more positive way, realising that it was so busy because of the amazing work the researchers are doing to keep people alive, not only to treat but also to cure. That's why I felt it was so important to give something back to The Christie and was one of my main reasons for fundraising.

I also wanted do something to thank and repay all The Christie staff who treated me along the way. From the hard working chemo nurses to the calming complementary therapists, psychologists, consultants, wonderful radiographers and thoughtful schedulers, they all made a difference to me.

Thanks to my lovely family and friends (and the power of Facebook) I managed to smash my £250 target and raised over £2,175. I was completely overwhelmed! And of course I was very emotional when I crossed the finish line. 

I'm so pleased I took part with family and friends, it was a brilliant event. If someone had told me in May when I finished chemo that I'd be capable of walking 10k on a cold night in October I would have either laughed or cried depending upon the mood I was in!

I am incredibly lucky to live in Didsbury, so near to The Christie, which definitely made the treatment more manageable and I'm very grateful for that. Before my diagnosis I must have driven past the hospital thousands of times without really giving the place a second thought. Now I'm back in work and whenever I drive past The Christie on my daily commute, I feel a real sense of gratitude that hopefully this groundbreaking place on my doorstep has saved my life.

Thanks to Walk the Walk for its support in providing the cold cap scalp cooling equipment and also for its grant to support hypnocalm sessions for Christie patients like Natalie.

Please visit www.christies.org/ididit to find out what you can do to support The Christie in 2017.

I think my mum would be incredibly proud of what we have achieved in her memory - Amanda Hargreaves

Amanda Hargreaves, Christie fundraiser

Amanda Hargreaves

As The Christie launches a vibrant new fundraising campaign – ‘I did it for The Christie’, I want to share my story with you so you can understand the reasons why I decided to become a corporate fundraiser for The Christie.

At aged nine, I suffered the most traumatic of losses. My mum, Wendy, at the young age of just 34 (two years younger than I am today) sadly lost her long and courageous battle with cancer. My mum was a true fighter. She suffered years of pain and treatments, one of which was the amputation of her leg, solely to live to see me grow up.   

I miss my mum every single day but never more so than at special times. Nothing can prepare you for the sadness you feel when you go and try on a wedding dress and your mum isn’t there or when she isn’t there to share in the most important day of your life. 

Nobody tells you how hard it will be when you get your dream job and you can’t pick up the phone to tell her or when you’re not feeling well and you just want your mum. Although nobody can ever prepare you for such loss, they can help! And that’s what The Christie did for me – they helped and they made things easier.

I am sorry if the start of my story is sad, brings a tear to your eye and a lump to your throat but unfortunately the fact is that cancer doesn’t always have a happy ending. However, rather than dwell on the sadness and the pain I have had because of cancer, I wanted to share some of the positives.  

Without The Christie and its wonderful staff, my mum might have lost her life much sooner. They supported our family which is one of the most important things. I mean really how do you break that news to your family that you aren’t going to beat this disease!? Her cancer was never hidden from me and I was informed of every decision that was made, and even though I perhaps didn’t really understand what was happening, the hospital helped my family explain things to me. They helped mum find a wig when her hair fell out, recommended holistic therapists who would home visit her to help ease her severe pain, and were just there for her and my Dad when they needed someone outside our family unit and circle of friends.

I spent lots of time at The Christie with my Mum and as I grew older I wondered how I could give something back. When the idea of setting up the Manchester PA Network came about, my fellow co-founder and friend Mel and I decided that we should use the network to raise money for The Christie.  

We decided to hold events that our guests could buy tickets for and the money raised would go to The Christie – a great idea but how would we set this network up and get people interested in joining? It wasn’t as easy as we thought. We launched in July 2011 with 50 PAs from various Manchester businesses. We had a raffle and raised a good amount for the charity, but it wasn’t enough, we had to do more!

We became corporate fundraisers and heard about the tree of hope, a beautiful bronze tree in the garden of the hospital, where you could have a leaf with the name of a loved one placed in return for a £15,000 donation. That was when we decided £15,000 would be our first target, and it didn’t take us as long as we thought to get our first leaf with my mum’s name on it. Since then we have raised enough to have a second, a third and a fourth leaf with the name of a loved one on it.

Holly Moore and Amanda Hargreaves from Manchester PA Network 

How did we raise money? We did event after event, each time raising money with raffles and ticket sales. Every year we have a Manchester PA Network team in the Manchester 10K and I have abseiled off Old Trafford with my husband. We encourage our members to take up personal challenges and get involved.

This year was the fifth year of the Manchester PA Network. We now have over 600 members and to date we have raised more than £65,000. We recently set ourselves the challenge to raise £100,000 by the year 2020.  

Through our fundraising we have helped raise awareness of the wonderful work The Christie does. We have shared patient experiences and heard from the clinicians and the fundraising team who all work so hard for the hospital. I am no longer ‘Amanda who lost her Mum to cancer’ I am now ‘Amanda Hargreaves, corporate fundraiser and co-founder of the Manchester PA Network’ who is incredibly proud each day not only of the amount of money I have helped to raise, but also the awareness I have helped to raise about this wonderful hospital and charity.  

I hope that one day there will be a world without cancer but, until that day, I will keep going, so that other little girls don’t lose their precious mummies.

So you see a positive did come out of such a great loss, and whilst sometimes I visit the hospital and feel very sad, there are more times I go there and think ‘wow, look at what I have contributed to’. I think my mum would be incredibly proud of what we have achieved in her memory and we will carry on raising money and awareness to fight this disease. 


If you have been inspired to support The Christie after reading Amanda’s story please visit www.christies.org/ididit 

Thank you for the Music - Mike Booth

Mike Booth

Mike Booth, patient and recent recruit to the Rhythm of Life Choir

Like many others, I have faced the emotional tsunami of a cancer diagnosis and apprehensively entered the sliding doors of The Christie some three years ago.

I had given to cancer research charities for years, but never dreamed it might benefit me. No, that was for my parents, older relatives maybe. No, that was for my parents, older relatives maybe.  But after a protracted drugs trial and the excellent support of the team at The Christie I am pleased to say what felt like a death sentence has been commuted to a suspended sentence, still hanging over me, but not affecting my daily life in the same way.

I, like many, have been through blood tests, filled urine containers, had spinal samples, MRI scans, medications, acupuncture, mindfulness and much hanging around with some apprehension waiting for test results.  All highly efficient and helpful - no-one needs to tell us that The Christie is outstanding.

But it is only in the last couple of months that I have found the best therapy The Christie has to offer. 

When my friend Anna asked me along to the Rhythm of Life Choir I wasn’t sure what to expect, but within minutes I was hooked on this new ‘musotherapy’.  An hour and a half getting an infusion of adrenaline, endorphins and positive thinking without any needle in my hand, tubes, blood pressure checks or beeping machines.  And no side effects!  No headaches, nausea, trembling or sleeplessness. What could be better?

Carol, our choir leader, has such energy and enthusiasm that she has taken a group of (dare I say it) average singers and made us sound, well, quite good! She bounces us through a great repertoire of uplifting world music chants, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, religious songs and now even Carol’s Christmas – I mean Christmas carols - all in three part harmony.  

And harmony is what it is all about.  We are a disparate group of people whose lives have been affected by cancer, whether as patients, relatives or staff at The Christie.  We are all ages, from 13 to 85, from all backgrounds. The choir is mostly women, so male singers are particularly welcome but no singing experience (or particular talent!) is required.  We don’t use music, we just listen and repeat, following Carol’s fantastic conducting giving us the pitch to go for.  And our songs are all pretty short so can be learned quickly and polished over a period of weeks.

Rhythm of Life Choir

Right in the heart of The Christie community is the conservatory, full of light and almost in the garden.  And the beautiful Maggie’s Centre across the road is such a peaceful, bright and hopeful space, full of optimism. It feels closely linked to the sky and nature with the calmness of the surrounding gardens. We can almost feel the ‘rhythm of light’ as we let these lovely spaces flow into our hearts. Bring me little water, Christie, as we find renewed energy and life.

We are not, I hasten to add, a performance choir but we sing for the positive benefits to our minds, souls and bodies. We have now had quite a few bookings though, performing for patients at The Christie, appearing on TV for Gareth Malone’s The Choir – Gareth’s Best in Britain and our latest exciting appearance on BBC Breakfast TV with Naga Munchetty for Cancer Awareness Week recently. That was such an affirming and wonderful morning, full of life, hope, light and warmth and helped us bond as a choir as well as join with the community of support at Maggie’s.

We meet every second Monday evening at 7.30pm in the conservatory off the glass corridor at The Christie and at 1pm every other Monday in the Maggie’s Centre. It would be great to see more people and there is no long term commitment.  If you are interested in joining the choir please contact Ros on 0161 446 3996 or email Rosalyn.Fox@christie.nhs.uk.  It could lead to new harmony in your life!

This is an outstanding hospital thanks to all our staff who go the extra mile - Chris Outram

Chris Outram, Chair of The Christie Board

Chris Outram, Chair of The Christie Board

I’m incredibly fortunate to be Chair of The Christie at such an exciting time for the organisation. The news that The Christie has been rated ‘outstanding’ by the Care Quality Commission, following its rigorous comprehensive inspection back in May, is just fantastic.  

I’ve known that this is an outstanding hospital from the very first day I joined the  
Trust two years ago, but it is very humbling when an independent watchdog like the CQC comes to the same conclusion.

I have constantly been struck by the way The Christie brings together compassion, kindness and respect for our patients and for each other, alongside great evidence-based care and treatment, and world class research and teaching. It's a wonderful combination.  

To have the CQC’s Chief Inspector of Hospitals, Professor Sir Mike Richards – who, as former National Cancer ‘Tsar’ does know a thing or two about cancer services – describe the care at The Christie as ‘of exceptional quality’ is a massive accolade. I’m not aware of the CQC saying that about any other trust yet.  

He goes on to state that we are helping to shape the future of cancer care, and that we represent ‘a clear example of a trust leading in its field’. Such warm recognition for the humanity of our care, that brings leading edge, world class treatment for the benefit of all our patients, is something that we should savour for a long time – and continue to nurture.

The CQC also highlighted a number of outstanding practices including:

• The surgical division’s ‘remarkable’ approach to treatment with the multidisciplinary cancer team offering bespoke multi-specialities to patients which improved survival rates
• The Trust’s ‘outstanding’ programme of alternative and complementary therapies
• The structure of the Trust’s end of life care team which is now being rolled out across cancer centres throughout the country.

We could not have achieved this without our dedicated staff who work tirelessly to give the very best care and treatment possible to our patients. On behalf of the Board, I want to thank each and every member of staff at The Christie for everything they do to make The Christie such a special place.   
  
There are so many small examples of our staff thoughtfully helping our patients in a way that can make a big difference.

One recent example is that a couple of weeks ago I stopped at the Oak Road entrance to take a few photos of the lovely posters of the seasons made for us by local schoolchildren. I got talking with an elderly patient, who told me how much he and his family appreciated the compassion and care displayed to them by every Christie member of staff they came across. 

He told me that during a recent outpatient appointment there had been an unexpected downpour of rain; when he and his wife returned to their car at the Oak Road entrance they realised that they had left one of their windows completely open. But the car interior hadn't got wet because a member of staff had taped a plastic bag over the open window to protect it. 

I'd like to thank that member of staff, and all of our staff, who do an outstanding job showing our patients and each other such care, kindness and respect on a daily basis. This really was an example of 'going the extra mile' - or as management textbooks might put it, 'discretionary effort'. It's this sort of story that makes me so honoured to be The Christie’s Chair.  

One of the great things about The Christie is that not only do our staff show such kindness and respect, but they also deliver that alongside great evidence-based care and treatment, and world class research and teaching. It's a fantastic combination. 

A recent example of this is the active and leading part we have played in Manchester's successful application to the National Institute for Health Research for Biomedical Research Centre status, bringing further resources and prestige to our cancer research programmes. 

But the NHS is facing highly challenging times, and we are not immune from this, no matter how hard we strive.

Having recently been elected to the national Board of NHS Providers (the “trade association” for NHS hospitals) it’s interesting to hear how the discussions taking place nationally mirror the discussions taking place locally in Greater Manchester about how hard everyone in the NHS is working to maintain and improve the quality and standards of care for patients despite the tough financial climate. This is just as true of us at The Christie where many staff are contributing to our efforts to implement cost improvements whilst transforming the standards of care we offer. It is not easy, but we have made tremendous progress. 

Developments in the wider political arena, both here and across the Atlantic, present us with another set of challenges, on which I want to make the views of the whole Trust Board - crystal clear. It is our Christie values of compassion, integrity and respect, for our patients and for each other that bind us together and support all that we do. Those values include an absolute commitment to diversity and inclusion and without them we could not be an outstanding organisation.

The news at the moment is full of stories and debate that risk making anyone who sees themselves as "different" or "foreign" feel unwelcome. For example, a positive news story a few weeks ago, about investing more in medical training, somehow became a suggestion that perhaps doctors from overseas were less welcome. But the NHS has always been a diverse organisation, and so has The Christie. 

We want to say, in the strongest possible terms, that this great organisation of ours, and the patients that we serve, depend on the contribution of each and every member of staff. We value the fact that we are a diverse and international organisation, with the exciting ambition of being in the top five in the world - and with that ambition, what else could we be. No matter where in the world our staff come from - and no matter what their gender, race, job, sexuality or anything else – we want them to know that their work is valued and appreciated, and that we support them and need them here as part of our team.