Supporting our community

Last year, we supported 2765 people who called or emailed our Support Service, our Clinical Trials Service, or joined our forum. We also responded to 1,693 support-related messages on social media.

This is lower than the previous year, reflecting the fact that during 2021-2022 we saw exceptional demand for our services due to Covid-19. The nature of calls coming through to us this year are significantly more complex, reflecting a shift in the needs of our community and the level of support available.

We created new booklets on myeloma and acute myeloid leukaemia. We also published tailored information about caring for Afro-textured hair during treatment, and launched a new website section on side effects, focusing on the effects that are often overlooked.

In total, we sent out 36,724 health information resources in response to demand from hospitals and people affected by blood cancer, a 40% increase on the 26,265 we sent out the previous year.

There were also 1.1 million people who accessed health information via our website, a big increase from the 619,811 people who accessed it the previous year.

We launched a pilot episode of a podcast, called Blood Cancer Heart to Heart, in which we brought together two people who were partners of someone with blood cancer to talk about their experiences.

We made submissions to consultations, including on the government’s strategy for developing cancer care, a government review of clinical trials, and National Institute for Health and Care Excellence appraisals of new treatments.

We also took two campaigns to Westminster to raise awareness of issues affecting our community, and one of our ambassadors joined with other charities to go to No 10 Downing Street to call for the government to publish a cancer plan.

We also expanded our policy work to ensure we are the voice of people affected by blood cancer across the UK. To find out more about the work we achieved in parliament, with the NHS and more, why not take a look at pages 12-14 of our full annual report? You can also find out more about how we continued to support our community through Covid-19.