You may have seen our isolation box in Paddington station in London last week. This gave people the experience of being alone in a crowd. We know that lots of people affected by cancer feel alone, and we hope that our range of cancer information goes some way to showing people that we are here for them.
The Cancer Information Development team at Macmillan does certainly produce a lot of information – over 160 printed resources and over 3000 web pages. Last year, we sent out 1.8million information resources to people affected by cancer.
Most people ordered Help with the cost of cancer, with about 7000 copies sent out each month. Other popular titles included Coping with fatigue, Understanding chemotherapy and What to do after cancer treatment ends: 10 top tips.
Last year, our cancer information web page received over 350,000 visitors. And over 260,000 people visited our signs and symptoms web page.
Over the last couple of years, we’ve been asking people what they think about our information and how it helped (or didn’t help) them.
Most people felt that our information met their expectations. People found it reassuring and also described it as 'easy to digest' and 'straightforward'.
We’re really happy about this because our team puts a lot of time and energy into making our information as clear and easy to understand as possible.
However, when we looked at whether people felt less anxious and alone after reading our information, we found this was something we weren’t fully achieving. This is something we want to fix. Some people told us that no information could ever change the way they feel about their cancer diagnosis. But others said they wanted more messages about the fact they’re not alone, and about ways Macmillan can help them.
So, we’re thinking hard about ways our information could help people feel less alone. We’re using plain and simple language and trying to use more relevant photographs and illustrations. We’re putting more case studies on our front covers and including more quotes in the booklets. We’re also including thinking tools in some information. These encourage people to write down how they’re feeling, what’s important to them or what problems they want to address and how. We hope these tools help people take some control back over their lives during their cancer journey.
Did you feel less alone after reading our information? We’d love to hear about your experience of using information during your cancer journey, and how it helped you. Write your comment below, or email us at cancerinformationteam@macmillan.org.uk
This blog was written by our Cancer Content Coordinator, Genevieve. To see what else Macmillan's cancer information team has been blogging about, please visit our blog home page! You can subscribe to receive our blogs by email or RSS too.
The Macmillan team is here to help. Our cancer support specialists can answer your questions, offer support, or simply listen if you need a chat. Call us free on 0808 808 00 00.
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