Breast Cancer Now: co-design for service delivery

Healthia has been appointed by Breast Cancer Now to collaborate with staff across the organisation to review service delivery and co-design a new model for future support service delivery.

Breast Cancer Now is the UK's largest breast cancer charity, providing world-class research and life-changing support for anyone affected by breast cancer. They currently support around 8,000 people per year through a range of support services, and have an ambitious strategy to scale this to 15,000 by 2026.

However, the existing processes and systems for managing referrals, registrations and support service delivery were identified as a barrier to the planned growth. Breast Cancer Now recognised the need to optimise and streamline end-to-end user journeys to create more intuitive sign-up paths and joined up experiences.

Healthia were selected based on their experience of service co-design across health and care, public and third sector. They are working collaboratively with Breast Cancer Now to gather insight from across the organisation to conduct an operational review of support services, highlighting gaps, pain points and opportunities.

Healthia's work will enable Breast Cancer Now to understand exactly what people need so that strategic technology decisions can be informed by evidence. They will be working with the team to create a shared vision for needs-based transformation so that Breast Cancer Now can increase reach and impact of services.

Sam Menter, Managing Director at Healthia said: "Third sector health and care organisations provide a vital lifeline to many people. To meet rising demand, services need to be scaled but they are often supported by systems, technology and processes that have been in place for some time and are less than optimal. 

“Our role is to bring the human perspective to transformation - it’s about much more than technology. We bring an outside-in perspective, engage stakeholders from the frontline to the back office, and co-design service transformation around delivering better human experiences.

"We understand the unique challenges facing third sector health providers in terms of limited resources, complex stakeholder landscapes and the imperative to drive meaningful change through services. Our way of working is purposely designed to be that guiding partner - unlocking opportunities, reducing costs and amplifying organisations' human impact."

Cath Biddle, associate director of digital at Breast Cancer Now, said: “We chose to work with Healthia because of their human-centred approach across health and care combined with their experience of working on large-scale projects with multiple stakeholders. The collaborative approach they proposed is a great fit for us at Breast Cancer Now.”