Marie Curie Cancer Care

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We're here to help you or your loved one to be cared for in your place of choice. Here at Marie Curie Cancer Care we are committed to providing the best advice and the best care.

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The charity is best known for its network of 2,000 Marie Curie Nurses working in the community to provide end-of-life care, totally free for patients in their own homes. Last year we cared for more than 31,000 terminally ill patients in the community and in our nine hospices. There is a Marie Curie Nursing Service available to 96 per cent* of the UK. We mainly care for people with cancer but we also care for people with other life-limiting illnesses such as dementia, Motor Neurone Disease and Heart Failure. While four in five (79 per cent)¹ of the UK population are aware of Marie Curie Cancer Care, a survey² commissioned by the charity last year revealed the same percentage doesn’t know if there is a Marie Curie Nursing Service available to them locally. Few also know how to access the service - just under half (48 percent) responded ‘don’t know’ when asked how they would go about getting a Marie Curie Nurse. To access a Marie Curie Nurse, patients and/or their carers should speak to their GP or District Nurse.
Marie Curie has nine hospices, It is the largest provider of hospice beds outside the NHS. Marie Curie Hospices provide care for patients with cancer and other illnesses and provide support for families and carers, all completely free of charge.

Around 70 per cent of the charity’s income comes from the generous support of thousands of individuals, membership organisations and businesses, with the balance of our funds coming from the NHS. We spend more than £83 million a year on our care and research activities. For every £1 we receive, 70p is spent directly on providing end of life care and research, 22p is invested to generate future funds and 8p is spent on support, governance and raising awareness.
Our services are always free of charge to patients and their families, which means that in 2009-10, we will need to raise more than £127 million. Marie Curie’s pioneering programme of palliative care research is showing how we can better care for cancer patients.
The charity has two centres for palliative care research, The Marie Curie Palliative Care Unit in London and The Marie Curie Palliative Care Institute in Liverpool. It also funds seven fundamental scientific research groups which investigate the causes and treatments of cancer. Following Marie Curie Cancer Care’s decision to change the emphasis of its research activity away from cancer cure and prevention, the charity has invested an additional £1million into a new fund for end of life care research across the UK.
This is part of a collaboration with Cancer Research UK which will provide expert advice on applications, grant funding and the peer review process. Research shows around 65 per cent of people would like to die at home if they had a terminal illness, with a sizeable minority opting for hospice care. However, more than 50 per cent of cancer deaths still occur in hospital, the place people say they would least like to be. Since 2004 Marie Curie Cancer Care has been campaigning for more patients to be able to make the choice to be cared for and die at home.
Notes

¹TNS ‘Post Stage Cancer Charities Awareness Study, April 3 2008

² All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc. Total sample size was 2158 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between 9th - 11th June 2009. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all UK adults (aged 18+).

*96 per cent of the UK is covered by the Marie Curie Nursing Service. The only health boards who do not currently commission Marie Curie Nursing Services are:

Knowsley PCT
Stockport PCT
Warrington PCT
Liverpool PCT
Bath and North East Somerset PCT
Monmouthshire LHB
Pembrokeshire LHB
NHS Orkney
NHS Shetland