Our impact
We fund healthcare professionals
Macmillan Professionals are the beating heart of our charity, helping people living with cancer live life as fully as they can. They are there for the bad days and they tell it like it is. But we've got the skills and experience to make the bad days and nights just a little bit easier.
One of our main priorities is to ensure more people living with cancer have good conversations with healthcare professionals about their all-round needs and concerns. A key way we’re making this happen is by funding more cancer professionals.
In 2023, we invested £38 million in grants to fund 314 full-time Macmillan Professional roles across the UK that focus on person-centred care. We also supported 490 education grants during the year. These grants allow professionals to undertake courses or conferences that support them to deliver better care for people living with cancer.
We provide healthcare services
We want everyone living with cancer to get the treatment and support they need. That's why we work with the NHS and other partners to deliver services where they are needed most.
In 2023 we facilitated 59,000 Holistic Needs Assessments for people living with cancer. This means they were able to have a structured conversation with a healthcare professional about their needs and concerns and receive a personalised care and support plan.
Our Macmillan local cancer Information and Support Centres offer a range of clinical, emotional and practical support. In 2023 an estimated 92,000 people diagnosed with cancer used our Information and Support Centres.
We provide cancer information and support
We believe everyone living with cancer should have access to the information and support they need to understand their cancer and make important decisions about their care.
In 2023:
- We supported an estimated 102,000 people through our Macmillan Support Line, website, our Volunteer Buddies and our Information and Support Centres across the UK.
- Approximately 730,000 people received in-person support from our Macmillan nurses, support workers and palliative care nurses as they went through diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up and end of life care.
- Over 9,000 people living with cancer accessed our BUPA counselling sessions to help them with the emotional impact of cancer.
We support people with money worries
People living with cancer have enough to worry about, and we don't want them to have to worry about money on top of everything else.
In 2023, we helped to identify a total of £451 million in financial gains for people with cancer.
We achieved this through our expert financial support services identifying state benefits that people were entitled to and through our Macmillan Grants scheme.
In 2023, our national network of local Macmillan Benefits Advisors reached around 81,000 people, identifying around £310 million in benefits.
"I had no idea that Macmillan did grants, and boy did I cry when it was given to me.” - Laura, diagnosed with breast cancer
We provide social, emotional and practical support services
We work in local communities to reach as many people living with cancer as we can.
Working with our amazing volunteers, our Macmillan Buddies provide emotional support to people living with cancer when they need it most – a free service that matches people with a volunteer who understands what they are going through. In 2023, Macmillan Buddies supported over 3,500 people living with cancer.
"When you get a cancer diagnosis, you need to have a big support team. There’s no doubt the Macmillan Buddy I have is a big support."- Keith, diagnosed with liver cancer
We campaign for betterness
In 2023 we found that at least 100,000 people across the UK have faced worse cancer outcomes due to increasing delays in being diagnosed and starting treatment with their NHS cancer care.
Delays can lead to people’s cancer spreading, jeopardising both their physical and mental health. It can restrict their treatment options and potentially reduce their chances of survival. Our dedicated cancer workforce go above and beyond to care for patients, yet they face an impossible challenge without the staff or resources they need.
In response, we launched our public advocacy campaign and published our report ‘What Are We Waiting For?’ to get governments to act on reducing cancer waiting times by 2025 and give people living with cancer across the UK a platform to call for change.
We stood alongside them to highlight the inequalities in cancer delays and potentially life-changing waits, while providing support for local services and people experiencing delays.
For the first time in history, Macmillan campaigners in all 650 constituencies took action, and the impact was felt across the UK.