Bring local blood testing closer to home for cancer patients

Our outreach service now

Since 2013, The Christie has been developing our SACT (systemic anti-cancer therapy) outreach services. SACT is treatments for cancer that uses medication and includes chemotherapy, immunotherapy, bisphosphonates and hormone treatment.

Our SACT outreach service means we can provide SACT treatments in hospital sites, hospices and primary care centres across Greater Manchester and Cheshire.

On top of our SACT outreach service, we began a pilot programme of local blood testing in 2019, consisting of 4 clinics per week. These services have continued to support around 200 local patients each week.

Care closer to home means less stress for cancer patients when they’re dealing with effects of their treatment. These are patients like Helen, who’s able to access a local blood testing centre just 8 miles from her home. Read Helen’s story and see how this has improved her quality of life.

How you could help bring blood testing closer to patients

Cancer patients receiving SACT treatments need a blood test before treatment. This is to check their blood levels, how their organs are functioning and protein levels, which can also act as markers for how treatment is responding.

Currently, most of our patients have to travel to our Withington site for blood tests. This can be hugely challenging if they live on the outskirts of The Christie catchment area or are already receiving treatment at a local site.

If patients are feeling unwell because of treatment. this can make the journey even harder. Or, if they are juggling jobs and childcare, the intensity of these visits can cause even more anxiety.

2 years ago, we piloted a local blood testing service across 4 locations, and the feedback we received was overwhelmingly positive. With your support today, we plan to open 20 new clinics to reach the people most in need. We’ll also be able to extend our hours and offer more appointments throughout the day.

Thanks to supporters like you, the service is already growing, with over 1,100 samples taken in the local clinics in June. The Altrincham clinic opened in June and SACT nurses have had lots of positive feedback from patients using the service. 

Our plans for the blood clinics

You can see in the graphic below where we'll open the new blood clinics, with your help.

And you can see from this table how many more blood test clinics we're planning to offer to cancer patients, on top of what we already offer.

We already have the skills, knowledge and support network in place to take this service from pilot to a full-scale programme. But we need your help today to help resource this project.

Initially we plan to reach 1,000 people per week through the local service. In the long-term, we hope that the service can be offered to all patients, including those on clinical trials.

Bringing blood tests closer to home could also help to boost recruitment to clinical trials, providing even more treatment options for patients. This will also help to advance our understanding of treating cancer.

We need to increase our capacity by relocating and recruiting more staff. Many of the sites we have selected are all clinical settings, and therefore have some equipment available. We will, however, need to fund more specialist equipment for taking bloods and recording results.

Your donation could help us fund:

• blood testing chairs with arm rests,
• an electronic booking system that patients can access at their convenience,
• a senior nurse to manage the new clinics,
• additional staff to support the clinics,
• rental costs for new sites,
• specialist equipment for each of the clinics, and
• a courier service to transport samples.