Plymouth Cancer Champions Project

There are significant differences in cancer survival between low and high-income areas, and despite various initiatives, these inequities persist. Macmillan Cancer Support has partnered with local Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) organisations in the UK to address the drivers of inequity in cancer care. In Plymouth, a low-income city in the South-West with higher cancer mortality rates, Macmillan has collaborated with Zebra (a small community collective working towards social and environmental justice), Age UK Plymouth (a charity which supports older adults), The Wolseley Trust (a social prescribing community development trust), as well as local GP surgeries, to implement an asset-based community development approach to minimise these inequities.

The Plymouth Cancer Champions' Project (PCCP) team was established in April 2024 and includes representatives from the local community along with individuals who have lived experience of cancer. They have since hosted multiple community cancer awareness and support events, aiming to tackle these inequities through community-led initiatives.

The Principal Investigator (PI) is a GP trainee, and with Zebra they are taking an embedded ethnographic action-research approach to explore how the PCCP influences Plymouth communities’ engagement with cancer care.