The Charity's Objectives are to relieve sickness and preserve and promote the health of people with cancer, in particular, but not exclusively by the provision of communication skills training programmes for medical staff and healthcare professionals responsible for the diagnosis, management, care and treatment of such people.
Lesley Fallowfield DBE, BSc, DPhil, FMedSci. is Professor of Psycho-oncology and Director of Sussex Health Outcomes Research and Education in Cancer (SHORE-C) at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. Her research interests are wide and include design of patient reported outcome measures (PROMs) many of which are used in major international clinical trials of cancer therapy. Her team has developed evidence-based communication skills training programmes for HCPs discussing complex information with patients such as talking about:- Randomised and Phase I cancer trials, metastatic disease, genomic and genetic testing (see https://shore-c.sussex.ac.uk).
Professor Fallowfield holds numerous research grants, has written over 500 papers, many book chapters and 3 text books. She lectures and runs workshops throughout the world in psychosocial oncology, quality of life assessment and communication skills and serves on the scientific boards of many cancer charities and international guidelines committees. Her expertise in these fields has resulted in prestigious eponymous lectures, awards and visiting professorships. In 2008 she became a Fellow of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences and in 2016 the Queen made her a Dame Commander of the British Empire for services to psycho-oncology. In 2019 she was given the ESO Umberto Veronesi Memorial Award and made an honorary fellow of the Association of Cancer Physicians for outstanding contributions to patient-centred cancer research and cancer care.
Valerie Jenkins is a Research Professor in psychosocial oncology. Originally an oncology nurse in Cardiff, she moved to Brighton and completed a BSc in Experimental Psychology (1986-1989) and DPhil in Neuropsychology (1993-1996) at the University of Sussex.
She has conducted research in the field of psychosocial oncology for over 30 years. Professor Jenkins has worked extensively on research projects aimed at improving our understanding about doctor/patient communication, especially that around randomised clinical trials. The training materials she developed with colleagues are now being used throughout the UK trials community and in other parts of the world. She was the chief investigator for several studies examining the impact of chemotherapy and aromatase inhibitors on cognition in national and international trials. Her other research interests include producing user-friendly patient information films and designing and evaluating ameliorative interventions to help with side effects from cancer treatments, e.g. and acupuncture to reduce xerostomia in head and neck cancer, and yoga for women recovering from breast cancer surgery.
Celia is a retired Senior Social Worker and Supporting Artiste and studied Experimental Psychology at the University of Sussex in the late 70’s. She then went on to the University of Bristol to study Social Policy and Social Work at Postgraduate level.
She retired early from Social Work after diagnosis and treatment for breast cancer and became involved in breast cancer campaigns which were then only taking off (the late 90’s). It was a very interesting time for her personally and for cancer services nationally.
Bridget has over 20 years’ experience in the higher education sector, and a strong background in management, leadership, international student services and welfare and international admissions.
Bridget has worked with INTO since 2005, during which time she has overseen the initial set up and implementation of the UK INTO centres, as well as the establishment of the Admissions and Application Processing functions in Brighton and San Diego.
Bridget has also acted as start-up director in the majority of INTO’s joint ventures.