In spring 2022, Cheshire and Merseyside Cancer Alliance (CMCA) launched a Community Engagement initiative to improve early diagnosis of cancer and reduce inequalities in cancer outcomes across targeted areas.
The initiative focused on distributing small grants to grassroots groups and organisations to develop socially and culturally sensitive approaches to raise awareness of cancer and encourage proactive health-seeking behaviour.
The initiative was a partnership with three Council for Voluntary Services (CVS) organisations across three areas in Cheshire and Merseyside, recognising the invaluable role they play in connecting and supporting the voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise sector, and their expertise and skills in working with communities.
For CMCA, it marked the beginning of a strong partnership with the voluntary sector and enabled access into communities that were showing the lowest levels of engagement with healthcare and the NHS.
In the summer of 2023, the initiative evolved into ‘Community Partnerships’ and was scaled up to cover all nine areas across the region. Building on the foundations established in earlier work, the Community Partnerships initiative continues to raise awareness of cancer, facilitating direct engagement with vulnerable groups and communities who face barriers and challenges in accessing healthcare.
By supporting people to recognise signs and symptoms of cancer, to access screening programmes, and in promoting healthier lifestyles, the initiative aims to support earlier diagnosis of cancer within these communities.
This engagement is led by eight Social Action Leads, employed by the CVS organisations, who coordinate small grants and projects. They are instrumental in supporting grassroots community organisations and groups, offering guidance and resource to enable the delivery of co-designed, community initiatives to raise awareness of cancer and encourage early detection.
To date, over 200 organisations and groups have been given funding for projects to raise cancer awareness, leading to over 48,000 interactions with local communities.
Over a third of the population of Cheshire and Merseyside live within the most socio-economically deprived 20% of the country, with wide variation between areas. Across the region, health deprivation is also higher than the national average.
In addition:
- Cheshire and Merseyside has over 16,000 new cancer cases and around 7,000 deaths due to cancer each year
- Cancer incidence is 5% higher than England, and cancer mortality is 8% higher
- Over 2.5 million people are registered with GP practices in the Cheshire and Merseyside area
- In January 2026, almost 130,000 of those people were living with a diagnosis of cancer.
Early-stage diagnosis is slightly higher than the rest of the country (56%), but still below the 75% ambition. On average, each GP practice needs to diagnose an additional seven patients at an early stage annually to reach 75%.
CMCA works in partnership with the eight CVS organisations across the region to deliver the Community Partnerships initiative. Through this programme, a range of projects (both funded and unfunded) are delivered to support some or all the following objectives:
- Improve early diagnosis of cancer
- Encourage uptake of cancer screening programmes
- Raise awareness of cancer signs and symptoms
- Increase understanding of how to reduce the risk of developing cancer
- Increase the number of people accessing cancer information and support
- Support emotional wellbeing
- Address stigma, discrimination and misconceptions about cancer
- Help reduce the number of cancers diagnosed late (stages 3 and 4)
- Signpost and navigate to relevant support services
- Promote opportunities to expand social networks and peer support.
Through the partnership, each CVS organisation receives funding for Social Action Lead salaries and a small grants budget. The total cost of the initiative is £300,000 annually.
The Community Partnerships contract is held by One Knowsley, one of the eight CVS organisations. Racheal Jones, Chief Executive Officer reflects: “As CEO of One Knowsley, I see first-hand how our local organisations are responding to the cancer information and advice that we are sharing with them.
"The Social Action Leads are embedded in their patch and are passionate about improving the health of people they work with day in, day out.
"There have been 48,000 interactions with communities across the region, and I’m convinced that this approach can transform and improve cancer awareness across communities, leading to a continuing and sustainable shift to diagnose cancer earlier.”
Chris Duvall – Knowsley
TBC – Sefton
Helen Parker – Warrington
Helen has been a Social Action Lead since the beginning of the project in 2023. She has worked for Warrington Voluntary Action since 2019, supporting a wide range of community and voluntary groups with funding, governance, training, and project development.
Her professional journey began after completing a degree in Psychology, followed by a Postgraduate Certificate in Education, which laid the foundation for a career dedicated to inclusion, learning, and community empowerment.
Helen is married with two children and a cat called Milo! Weekends and evenings are mostly spent proudly supporting her children to do the things they love, and walking with family or friends. She also loves running and family holidays.
John Buchanan – Cheshire West
John has been a Social Action Lead since 2023 and combines this with a role as Training Officer at Cheshire West Voluntary Action.
John has worked in the charity sector for over 20 years and describes himself as a social activist and advocate for the marginalised and underrepresented in the community.
John enjoys writing, running, and watching crazy things on YouTube, sometimes all at the same time!
Laura Bevan – Halton and St Helens
Laura joined Halton and St Helens Voluntary and Community Action as a Social Action Lead in 2024, having had a varied professional background.
She spent many years in facilities management before moving to the public sector as a community manager for a local school. Laura has been a local councillor since 2021 and founded a volunteer-led charity for women in 2018.
Laura is married with two daughters and a dog. When she gets a spare moment, she loves wild swimming, listening to music and walking. She is also known for penning the odd poem.
Lucy Coates – Cheshire East
Lucy joined Cheshire East CVS in 2023, her first role in the VCFSE sector. As well as the Social Action Lead role, Lucy works on a project with HMP Styal supporting recently released women to volunteer in their communities.
Prior to joining the CVS, Lucy worked in clinical research and in secondary education, supporting students and teachers with accessible learning.
Lucy loves the outdoor life – skiing, biking and walking her dog, Bailie. She is married and has two grown up children.
Mike Fortune – Wirral
Mike has been a Social Action Lead since 2025, a role he took after retiring from his corporate career of 27 years. Before joining One Wirral I worked for BT for 27 years.
He started his career as an engineer whilst studying behavioural psychology. This ultimately led to him becoming a Behavioural Change Consultant working on large change programmes and responsible for training, culture, and behavioural compliance programmes.
Mike is married with 3 grown up sons and 4 gorgeous grandchildren. He loves fishing, especially with his grandsons. He is also an old mod and, when he retired, fulfilled a dream to pass his motorbike test and get a Lambretta!
Steph Lawson – Liverpool
Steph took up the Social Action Lead role in 2024, having worked at Liverpool CVS for 10+ years. Her previous role involved enabling grants for community groups for projects with families living in hardship across Liverpool.
She also facilitates the Liverpool Health and Wellbeing Organisations Network, made up of over 200 organisations within Merseyside. Previously, Steph worked within childcare, specifically with children with special educational needs.
Steph has a young son who keeps her very busy! Weekends and non-working days are usually spent visiting farms and museums as he is an animal/ dinosaur enthusiast. She also owns two houseboats with her partner, which they run as Airbnbs.
Millie Wells – Project Coordinator
Millie joined the Cancer Alliance in July 2023 as a placement student and continued in her role part-time while completing her final year at university. On completing her degree, she was appointed into a full-time role as Project Coordinator.
Millie is from North Wales and loves the outdoors, particularly hiking, paddleboarding, and cold-water swimming. She loves dogs and has a passion for all things beauty!
Nancy Whittaker – Project Lead
Nancy joined the Cancer Alliance in January 2025, following eight years at Macmillan Cancer Support. Prior to that, she had various NHS roles in Manchester for 14-plus years, latterly in Commissioning.
Nancy loves Italy and Spain and has been learning Spanish (slowly!) for years, and more recently Italian on Duo Lingo. She also enjoys cooking, and runs and swims regularly. She loves dogs and adopted a Greek rescue dog called Ari who was found abandoned on a hill in Greece when he was two months old. He’s now aged seven and thriving!
Suzanne Dixon – Senior Project Lead
Before joining the Cancer Alliance in November 2023, Suzanne led several clinical networks across the North West. These networks brought together NHS providers alongside charities and individuals with lived experience to collaboratively improve care. Suzanne has always been driven by the power of collaboration. Prior to her NHS career, she worked in the pharmaceutical industry.
Suzanne’s family and travel are her greatest passions.She’s a proud mum to a teen son and two lively cats. She’s always planning their next adventure and her travel bucket list is ever-growing! She recently bought an electric bike to train for a cycling holiday, combining fitness, exploration and a glass of something cold.
Steve Jones – Senior Programme Manager
Steve started his career in hospitality, running bars and clubs in Manchester in his 20s before moving into the NHS over 15 years ago. He has always worked in cancer, initially in the community and charity sector before joining the NHS. Prevention and early diagnosis have always been his focus and he genuinely enjoys the challenges that this brings.
Outside work, Steve is a keen hiker and cook and often combines the two by taking a little gas burner and making lunch somewhere up a hill. He’s currently learning Spanish for his next holiday, as travel is a big part of his life too.
Over the last two years, we have seen over 48,000 community interactions from over 200 grassroots projects across Cheshire and Merseyside.
Work has focused on areas with highest deprivation, leading to almost 80% of interactions happening in the 20% most socio-economically deprived communities.
Cheshire and Merseyside has exceeded national trajectories for early cancer diagnosis rates of improvement, from below the England average in 2019, to slightly above the average in 2024, with Community Partnerships being a meaningful contributor to this.
Through the project, we have made significant efforts to not only capture the activity and output of the project, but also the impact on individuals and communities. Through our feedback mechanisms, participants reported greater confidence around health messaging, reduced fear of screening, and healthier lifestyle changes.
The feedback received highlights the importance of trust, openness, and empowerment in tackling health inequalities, but also the value and positivity that our communities get from being able to take ownership of cancer early diagnosis messaging.
We are currently working to further align our Community Partnerships work with NHS England’s 10‑Year Health Plan, and the recently published National Cancer Plan For England. There is already a strong focus on sustainability, scale, and legacy through community ownership, and in the future, this will remain a key feature.
There is potential to extend this model beyond cancer to other long‑term health conditions, and we hope to explore possible approaches with local system stakeholders.
In summary, Community Partnerships demonstrates that grassroots, community‑led engagement is a powerful driver of earlier cancer diagnosis, healthier lifestyles, and reduced inequalities, laying the foundation for long‑term, sustainable health improvement across Cheshire and Merseyside.
You can read more about the impact of the project, including some case studies and examples of projects, in the Community Partnerships Impact Report 2023-2025
You can also see this brought to life by some of our Social Action Leads and community groups in the Community Partnerships programme video.
- Cheshire & Merseyside Cancer Academy – an online platform offering free, comprehensive cancer education, learning and resources. These are designed for healthcare professionals to enhance their knowledge and skills in cancer care.
You will need to register to access the Academy resources. - Community Partnerships Padlet – a repository of information containing national and local cancer information and awareness resources.
- 1-2-3 Approach Health Inequalities – a training and education package aimed at cancer care professionals to support reducing health inequalities in organisations and roles.
- CMCA Patient Engagement and Health Inequalities
- Spot cancer early | Cancer Research UK
- Cancer Research UK Publications
- Macmillan cancer information and resources
- Macmillan online community
- Find local cancer support services | Macmillan Cancer Support
- Understanding cancer symptoms | Macmillan Cancer Support