Personalised Care and Support Planning in cancer care

Earlier this year, the NHS Lincolnshire Integrated Care Board (ICB) Living with Cancer Team were approached by Macmillan Cancer Support to broadcast a webinar on Personalised Care and Support Planning to the country-wide Macmillan community.

The Living with Cancer Team were awarded a Macmillan Excellence Award in the Integration category in 2022, recognising the great work the team had done to embed personalised approaches into practice across an Integrated Care System. 

After much preparation the Personalised Care and Support Planning webinar was broadcast live on 12 October 2023 to an audience of 60 people.

Although we wanted everyone in the team to talk about their contribution to Personalisation, we decided it would be best for Kathie McPeake and Steph Wilkes from  NHS Lincolnshire ICB, and Sam Lewis and Becci Pallett from United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS Trust (ULHT) to speak. The rest of the team took part in a Q&A at the end of webinar.

The webinar kicked off with an overview, from Kathie McPeake, of the Living with Cancer Programme, and its approach.

Kathie’s overall message was that personalisation should be applied right along cancer pathways, and by working together we are better than the sum of our parts when supporting patients.

Steph, Becci and Sam then took over, and talked about Personalised Care and Support Planning itself: how to create a great plan, and how it can be used throughout a patient’s cancer experience.

They used a fictitious person as an example (but with real-world challenges that people with cancer have faced) and showed how all sectors in Lincolnshire, working together, could support that person to improve his experience and their, and their family’s, quality of life.

A Q&A session followed with a huge number and range of questions being asked. All questions were answered either live or after the session. Several people contacted the team after the seminar. Many were sent examples of the team's work and some also met the team.

Macmillan announced that they have never had such an engaged audience, which was great to hear.

Kathie added "A huge thank you to the Living With Cancer Team for today and every day, for leading the way on personalised approaches, and for working so hard to improve the quality of life for people living with cancer in our county".

You can find out more about Macmillan and their approaches to personalisation by visiting this website: Education and Training | Healthcare professionals | Macmillan Cancer Support