Demanding better cancer care for today and tomorrow

News
Published: 02 July 2025
Gemma Peters, our Chief Executive, reflects on the first six months of 2025 and our ambitious new strategy coming to life.

Gemma Peters Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Macmillan

New beginnings in Newark

In June I went to the opening of a community-based Macmillan Information & Support Service in Newark, which is run in partnership with Sherwood Forest Hospital’s NHS Foundation Trust.  

The new service is the result of years of hard work and around £600,000 of Macmillan funding. It is different from a lot of our centres - it’s not in a hospital for a start, it is in a YMCA building in the heart of a community, and we share the space with other organisations who support local people.  

It is a service shaped on the feedback of people with a lived experience of cancer, and an example of how the services that people with cancer need must travel to the places where people are, not the other way round. The opening was a high energy event full of volunteers, health care professionals and community organisations excited to be working together for the first time to make things better for people with cancer locally.   

I always feel proud to work for Macmillan, but it’s moments like this that make me beam; an exciting new beginning, a tangible example of our new strategy in motion and a promising reminder of the opportunity for us to transform cancer care, if we pull together. 

 

The photo is of six people holding a long green ribbon. The person in the middle is cutting the ribbon. The phots was taken at the opening of a community-based Macmillan Information & Support Service in Newark.
Image: Opening of Macmillan Information & Support Service in Newark

 

Evolving to face the growing cancer challenge head on

We’re incredibly proud of the improvements we’ve made to our Macmillan Support Line this year - a free, confidential source of support that everyone can access. We’ve introduced new systems to give people a more personalised experience, meaning they don’t have to repeat their story to different members of the team. This also makes the service more efficient. We’ve already helped more than 47,000 people affected by cancer through the Support Line alone in 2025(1).

And we’re continuing to grow our Online Community, which provides a safe space around the clock for people to talk to others with similar concerns. In the first six months of 2025 the community has supported more than 330,000 people affected by cancer – that’s almost 85,000 more than the same period last year(2).

We’re also providing more support to the professionals who play such a vital role on the front-line of cancer care in the UK. Our improved Macmillan Professionals programme is off to a strong start, with over 500 new cancer professionals joining our Macmillan community since January(3). We’ve scoured the world for the best examples of cancer professional support and there are some very exciting plans to come. We currently support over 10,500 professionals, but by 2030 we want to see 40,000 Macmillan-badged cancer specialists in wards, clinics and communities across the UK. Providing the very best care to people when they need it most. 

Delivering for people with cancer today

We’re incredibly proud of the improvements we’ve made to our Macmillan Support Line this year - a free, confidential source of support that everyone can access. We’ve introduced new systems to give people a more personalised experience, meaning they don’t have to repeat their story to different members of the team. This also makes the service more efficient. We’ve already helped more than 40,000 people affected by cancer through the Support Line alone in 2025.

And we’re continuing to grow our Online Community, which provides a safe space around the clock for people to talk to others with similar concerns. Since the start of 2025 the community has supported more than 280,000 people affected by cancer – that’s almost 80,000 more than the same period last year. 

We’re also providing more support to the professionals who play such a vital role on the front-line of cancer care in the UK. Our improved Macmillan Professionals programme is off to a strong start, with over 500 new cancer professionals joining our Macmillan community since January. We’ve scoured the world for the best examples of cancer professional support and there are some very exciting plans to come. We currently support over 10,500 professionals, but by 2030 we want to see 40,000 Macmillan-badged cancer specialists in wards, clinics and communities across the UK. Providing the very best care to people when they need it most. 

Tackling the knotty issues facing cancer care at the root

But we can’t just focus on the urgent needs that people have today - we must do more than simply plug the current gaps in cancer care. We can change the way diagnosis and care happens so that experiences for the people who will be diagnosed tomorrow and beyond are better. 

One of my biggest highlights of 2025 so far has been our World Cancer Day event in Westminster. We brought together over 100 community leaders and people with lived experience of cancer to meet with Wes Streeting, England’s Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. It meant that people whose voices all too often go unheard could have their say and help to shape the government’s Cancer Plan for England which is currently in development. 

We’re also pushing ourselves to listen and work in partnership more. We’re bringing entire communities together to understand where poor experiences of cancer care are happening and how we can work together to achieve real and permanent change. At the same time, we seek out and invest in the ‘never-done-before' – the new ideas and technologies that have the potential to transform cancer care for the future in a way that everyone can benefit from them. There are so many examples, one of which is our recent investment into Perci Health and their online cancer clinic, which holds such promise for one day helping more people to access the personalised cancer support and advice they need. A lot more on all of this to come! 

Doubling down on our efforts to make the biggest difference  

Our history is one of evolution - shifting who we are and what we do to meet the changing needs of people with cancer - and the last couple of years have been no different. 

Six months into delivering our new strategy and we’re already making solid progress. We’re becoming the Macmillan that people affected by cancer want and need us to be. We’re pushing ourselves to be braver, more collaborative, more focused on impact and ultimately, more responsive to what people with cancer are telling us they need. 

We’re making absolutely sure that the money people entrust us with is not just spent on good things, but on the good things that will make the biggest difference for people living with cancer across the UK, both now and in the future.  

References

  1. Macmillan Cancer Support internal data. Refers to 1st January 2025 to 30th June 2025
  2. Macmillan Cancer Support internal data. Refers to 1st January 2025 to 30th June 2025
  3. Macmillan Cancer Support internal data.

About the author

Macmillan Chief Executive Gemma Peters standing outside smiling at camera.

Gemma Peters

Gemma Peters is Chief Executive Officer at Macmillan. View Gemma's profile to learn more about her role at Macmillan and her professional background.

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