Our impact for people living with cancer
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.
Our Macmillan nurses and other Macmillan professionals are an integral part of who we are and what we do. By the end of 2025, there were just over 11,100 Macmillan professionals, who support hundreds of thousands of people living with cancer across the UK each year.
This includes:
- More than 5,400 cancer clinical nurse specialists
- More than 1,200 Allied Health Professionals (AHPs) across roles such as occupational therapists, therapeutic radiographers, dietitians and physiotherapists
- More than 1,000 support workers
- More than 150 psychology therapy professionals
- Almost 100 Macmillan GP
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.
2025 also marked the milestone of the 500,000th care plan completed across the UK via Macmillan’s eHNA platform, meaning we have now supported more than 420,000 people to receive care and support that reflect their personal circumstances and needs as they navigate cancer.
In 2025, around 90,000 people living with cancer visited one of our Macmillan information centres at hospitals and community settings across the UK.
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 2025:
- We supported almost half a million people living with cancer (476,000) via one or more of our information and support services, including our Support Line, Information and Support Centres, Online Community, website, email support and Buddies service.
- The Online Community is a space where many find comfort in connecting with others with similar experiences. In 2025, almost 350,000 people with cancer found support through the Online Community, a 22% increase compared with the previous year (286,000 people with cancer).
We provide social, emotional and practical support services
"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 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.
We currently have more than 500 Macmillan Buddies, who are trained to listen and provide emotional support to help people navigate day-to-day life following a cancer diagnosis, at what can often be the most challenging time of their life.
In 2025, our Buddies supported around 3,800 people with cancer across the whole of the UK, providing more than 17,000 sessions of emotional support.