Continuing to support people with blood cancer

The 10,500 enquiries we received during the year was more than double the number from the previous year. During April 2021 we saw a sevenfold increase compared to the previous April. The pandemic was also the main reason we saw more than 400,000 page views of our online forum, which saw more than 6,000 comments (a 59% increase on the previous year) and 558 new members (an 18% increase on the previous year).

We sent out 35,000 information and support resources, both to hospitals and directly to people affected by blood cancer. This was lower than the previous year (when we sent out 49,500) because of less demand from hospitals as fewer patients attended in person.

More than 407,000 people visited the blood cancer information and support pages of our website, and the number of page views for our health information increased from 1 million in 2019/20 to 1.4 million in 2020/21. This was driven largely by interest in our COVID-19 information, and we also published new information for people who were newly diagnosed and for people who knew someone with blood cancer.

Given how the scale of the increase in support services enquiries meant that at times we struggled to cope with the demand, we are proud of the high standards we maintained, with 93% of people saying they were satisfied with the support they received. This support made a real difference, as 74% of service users said they felt more confident about managing their health afterwards.

Examples of real feedback we have had over the last year include:

• “During this pandemic, Blood Cancer UK have been there every time I needed them. The support I have received has been exemplary and invaluable to me. Thank you.”
• “I gained support and understanding way above what I expected. The professionals were so good at reflective listening. They helped me to put things into perspective. They were a lifeline to me and filled a gap which had previously been provided by my medical team.”
• “Living with a blood cancer would be much lonelier experience without the forum. It is good to know that I am not alone with my experiences. It is also a place to rant when I want to spare my family from my continuous rants and emotional outbursts.”

Many people with blood cancer have told us our services were more important than ever over the last year, because they found it harder to get in touch with their haematology team during periods when the COVID-19 infection rate was high. As well as our regular services, we piloted a new Call Back Service, which involved 112 people signing up to regular calls from our phone line, and this resulted in participants feeling less isolated and better able to manage relationships with others. We are now looking for external funding to launch the service as a permanent offering.

We also launched a new Clinical Trials Service in response to data that showed that many people with blood cancer were not getting the chance to access clinical trials and there was a postcode lottery around how easy it was. In the first few months we supported 61 people, which was much higher than we expected, and of these 10 people have been enrolled in a clinical trial, giving them the chance to access promising treatments not yet available via the NHS. Another 17 of the 61 people are awaiting enrolment.