King’s College London helps charity to extend its services to cancer patients

Concern that older people and those from black and ethnic minority groups were less likely to use its information and support services led charity Breast Cancer Care to team up with academics at King’s College London.

Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) enable businesses to work in partnership with an academic institution to obtain knowledge and expertise to which they currently have no access. This knowledge is embedded into the company through a project undertaken by a recent graduate (known as the associate) who is recruited specifically to work on that project. Each partnership can receive up to 67% of its funding costs from the Government.

At Breast Cancer Care, associate Emma Blows explored the barriers that black and ethnic minority groups faced through extensive research, including focus groups, and proposed a series of improvements to the charity’s existing work. She received academic supervision and guidance from Professor Emma Ream, a leading expert in palliative cancer care at the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing & Midwifery at King’s College London.

The research has enabled the charity to target its limited resources more effectively, reaching more people with the same amount of funding. The work was published in an academic journal and brought the charity greater profile for fundraising as a result. Breast Cancer Care has subsequently employed Emma to carry out further research on the needs of under-served groups.

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