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In 1911, a young man named Douglas Macmillan watched his father die of cancer. His father's pain and suffering moved Douglas so much, he founded the 'Society for the Prevention and Relief of Cancer'.
Douglas wanted advice and information to be provided to all people with cancer, homes for patients at low or no cost, and voluntary nurses to attend to patients in their own homes.
Today much of Douglas' legacy lives on. We are still a source of support for people living with cancer today and we are a force for improving cancer care.
Douglas Macmillan establishes the 'Society for the Prevention and Relief of Cancer', providing information on recognising, preventing and treating cancer to patients, doctors and members of the public.
We become a Benevolent Society and change our name to 'National Society for Cancer Relief', providing practical help to patients and their families.
The first paid member of staff is appointed.
The first local Committee is formed in Bath.
We begin to support in-patient care, making our first contributions towards building hospices.
We fund our first Macmillan nurses. We build and equip the first Macmillan cancer care unit.
We appoint our 10th Macmillan nurse.
We invest £2.5 million to expand Macmillan nursing teams throughout the UK. We launch an educational programme to train doctors, nurses and students in advanced pain control and cancer care.
We fund the first Macmillan doctor.
We change our name to 'Cancer Relief Macmillan Fund'.
We launch the Macmillan Nurse Appeal to raise £20 million.
Our 1,000th Macmillan nurse is appointed.
We pioneer '10 minimum standards of care' as part of a nationwide campaign about breast cancer.
We develop the first Directory of Breast Cancer Services in the UK, distributing it to GPs.
We develop six 'minimum standards' for a gynaecological cancer campaign.
We open our new Macmillan National Institute of Education (MNIE), with 10 lecturers for training specialist cancer care professionals. The Information Line helps more than 11,000 people during its first year of operation.
We fund our 2,000th Macmillan nurse.
Macmillan merges with Cancerlink, a national charity providing support to people affected by cancer, particularly those in cancer self help and support groups. Our first mobile Macmillan cancer information centre visits 51 sites across England, bringing information and support to more people than ever before. We finish our 100th building project, a day centre at Craigavon in Northern Ireland.
Our Macmillan CancerLine is launched, integrating the existing Macmillan Information Line and Cancerlink's information services.
We change our name to Macmillan Cancer Support to help people better understand what we do.
We merge with Cancerbackup| , allowing us to provide high quality, expertly developed information about cancer, and make it available to everyone who needs it.
Our integrated phone service launches, allowing people affected by cancer to call just one number for medical, financial, practical and emotional support.