About Us

What is the National Cancer Alliance?

The National Cancer Alliance (NCA) is a national charity working for and with people with cancer, their relatives, friends and carers, health-care professionals including doctors, nurses and professionals allied to medicine, and other individuals or organisations concerned about or interested in improving cancer services. The NCA is a registered Charity, No 1050349, and a Company Limited by Guarantee, No 3011753.

The NCA Vision

All people with cancer, wherever they live, will receive the highest quality treatment and care from specialist cancer teams, offering the best chance of a cure and the highest quality of life.

The NCA Mission

The NCA will harness and use the collective knowledge and experience of cancer patients and health professionals to influence and inform the development and improvement of cancer services in the UK to achieve our vision of equality and high standards of care.

NCA Funding

The NCA is funded through donations from companies and individuals; sales of publications and reports; consultancy on cancer services and provision of expert advice. It also receives commissions, grants or sponsorship for specific projects or activities. Funding bodies include the Department of Health; The National Lotteries Charities Board; The New Opportunities Fund; individual Health Authorities and NHS Trusts and corporate sponsors.

Staff, Trustees and Volunteers

The NCA is run by a Board of Trustees, chaired by Dr Becky Miles. The NCA is staffed by volunteers. If you would like more information about the NCA, please contact us.

NCA Achievements

At the time of its foundation, the NCA’s prime aim was to seek improvements in cancer services. Uniquely, the NCA was formed as an alliance of people using cancer services and the health professionals providing and planning those services. The dialogue generated between these groups has led to a greater understanding about what is needed in cancer services and what the problems and possible solutions are.

The NCA has provided an organisational framework through which people with cancer, their families and carers could safely speak out about their experiences. It has enabled people to become better informed about their condition and more empowered about getting access to the services that could or should be available to them. It has enabled people to become actively involved in working with others on improving services nationally or locally, without the fear of having their personal care compromised, or being seen as individuals with ‘axes to grind’.

In its short life, the NCA has established an excellent track record in achieving many of its original objectives. Since 1994, the NCA has:

	Established itself as a respected national voluntary organisation, founded and led by real cancer patients, to enable patients and carers to have a collective voice.
	Represented cancer patients’ views on key government policy groups, including:

	Chief Medical Officers’ Expert Advisory Group on Cancer (Calman-Hine)
	NHS Executive’s Clinical Outcomes Group
	The National Cancer Guidance Steering Group
	The National Cancer Action Group
	Several Royal College working groups
	The National Cancer Forum
	The National Cancer R&D Review Steering Group

	Researched and published the first ever Directory of Cancer Specialists (1996).
	Developed and piloted local models of ‘user-involvement’, working with local health authorities and Trusts. The East Sussex, Brighton and Hove experience has become a model emulated elsewhere across the country.
	Published a number of influential studies on patient experiences of their care and their recommendations and priorities for improvement, including the seminal Patient Centred Cancer Services? – What Patients Say (1996), as well as reports on Urological, Haematological and Head and Neck cancer patients views and experiences.
	Developed, tested and piloted a patient information and communication tool –The Teamwork File - A Personalised Information File for People with Cancer (2000).
	Lobbied for and involvement in the development, publication and monitoring of national cancer standards.
	Provided high-level input to the National Guidelines and Guidance for specific tumour types.

The NCA has won the respect of policy makers and health professionals for the high quality of its work, its balanced approach to urgent and important issues and its search for genuine, practical solutions to the challenge of improving cancer services.

The NCA has won the respect of policy makers and health professionals for the high quality of its work, its balanced approach to urgent and important issues; its search for genuine, practical solutions to the challenge of improving cancer services.