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2021-12-01-accounts

ANNUAL REPORT 2020/2021

TABLE OF CONTENTS

WHO ARE WE? 3
WHY DO WE EXIST? 4
STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCE &
MANAGEMENT 7
ACTIVITIES AND ACHIEVEMENTS 9
WE'D LIKE TO THANK 16
FINANCIAL STATEMENT 18

MISSION REMISSION ANNUAL REPORT 20/21

W H O A R E W E ?

Mission Remission is the only UK charity solely dedicated to supporting people moving forward from cancer.

Our vision is for everyone to live a happy, healthy, independent life after cancer and we plan to improve the experience of recovery for every cancer survivor in the UK.

We’re an organisation entirely formed by, and for, people who have lived with cancer: not only our founder but also our Chair & Trustees, members and volunteers, administrators and specialist medical advisors have all lived with cancer.

We know its journey; the treatment, and post-treatment challenges that arise afterwards, in remission, when supposedly "moving forward".

Alongside supporting those in remission, we work to improve outcomes by collaborating with NHS services. We work to remove barriers to faster diagnosis and ensure people with cancer are better heard.

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MISSION REMISSION ANNUAL REPORT 20/21

W H Y D O W E E X I S T ?

Life after cancer can be tough.

Once the cancer ‘battle’ is won, everyone celebrates your tale’s happy ending. It’s time to forget, move on, and feel grateful to be alive. Yet most don’t realise that recovery can be a battle in itself.

It’s difficult to forget cancer if, like more than four-fifths of those who took part in our survey, the fear of a recurrence paralyses with anxiety. It’s difficult to move on when you’re one of the two-thirds of people facing serious health issues, your body no longer working as it once did. And difficult to feel grateful when the very loves and hopes that defined you as a person now feel out of reach.

90% of people feel the time after cancer treatment is just as traumatic as the diagnosis (Breast Cancer Care). You’re faced with the need to return to ‘normal’ life, when life no longer feels normal.

2.5 million people live with cancer in the UK, yet survivors currently receive little to no support to help deal with the aftermath of treatment. In fact, more widely, there’s sparse information on life after cancer, with scant clinical research.

So we wanted to do something about it.

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MISSION REMISSION ANNUAL REPORT 20/21

W H Y D O W E E X I S T ?

Mission Remission champions cancer survivors.

We’re a grassroot, community-run charity and help people by running our online platform, now with over 15,000 community members. We also run support groups, online discussions, a book club, and our early diagnosis campaign, Something’s Not Right.

We aim to support all 2.5million cancer survivors reach their full potential, including the 48% of people who face a rarer cancer, who do not have a large disease-specific charity to put them first.

We make survival less isolating and more empowering. We’ve doctors and mental health specialists on hand, and have created a community helping tens of thousands of people share positive stories and practical tips. We support survivors to move forward with their lives.

We believe that cancer survivors are experts by experience. We are a community-run organisation, with all activities run by survivors. Our projects focus on building a strong community, forming connections and support between cancer advocates, and sharing peer support.

We promote role models who inspire and motivate. Our uplifting stories of recovery prove to those feeling dispirited, isolated, and incapacitated by ill health, that moving forward after cancer is possible. We’ve found that believing in recovery is often the first step, but biggest hurdle.

In the four years we’ve been running, we’ve reached hundreds of thousands of people. Over 80% of survivors state reading our practical tips improves their well-being and our stories and strategies have been voted helpful over 20,000 times.

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MISSION REMISSION ANNUAL REPORT 20/21

“I'm so grateful to you for all the information and support you've provided to me since I finished treatment. Everyone seems to expect you to bounce back immediately, so I've not found this kind of support anywhere else.”

Breast cancer survivor

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MISSION REMISSION ANNUAL REPORT 20/21

M I S S I O N R E M I S S I O N ’ S S T R U C T U R E , G O V E R N A N C E & M A N A G E M E N T

Mission Remission was formed by Constitution agreed on 7 September 2017. It was registered as a Community Interest Company on this date and converted to a charity, registering with the Charities Commission of England & Wales on 16 December 2019.

Our trustees are:

Hasan Reza, Chair Andrew Morgan, Treasurer Kasmyn Chen, Secretary Emily Hodge Emma Robertson Ryan Pickett Jane Spurgeon

Recruitment and appointment of new Trustees is the responsibility of the existing Trustees. The Trustees may appoint any person who is willing to act as Trustee subject to the requirements of the Charities Commission and the Constitution. The Trustees manage the charity, along with the President, Laura Fulcher, who works on a voluntary basis.

No Trustees are paid for carrying out their duties as Trustees. Other professionals have been paid for providing specific services to the charity on an invoice basis that does not constitute employment. The Trustees and Founder make all decisions regarding the running and management of the charity and are supported by volunteers who carry out specific tasks and roles.

The Trustees have had due regard to the commission’s public benefit guidance when exercising any powers or duties to which the guidance is relevant. The Trustees have given consideration to the major risks to which the charity is exposed and satisfied themselves that systems or procedures are established in order to manage those risks. There were no serious incidents to report during the financial year 2020-2021.

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MISSION REMISSION ANNUAL REPORT 20/21

“Every day I have to fight the demons of anxiety, pain and fear but I now see a light at the end of the tunnel… and if anyone wants to know how I coped I will say ‘Mission Remission!’” Community Member

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MISSION REMISSION ANNUAL REPORT 20/21

A C T I V I T I E S & A C H I E V E M E N T S

Our activities and achievements within 20/21 are summarised below. These are grouped

as:

ADVICE AND INFORMATION

BUILDING AN ACTIVE COMMUNITY

HACKNEY & CITY PATIENT RECOMMENDATIONS FOR CHANGE

‘SOMETHING'S NOT RIGHT’ CAMPAIGN

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MISSION REMISSION ANNUAL REPORT 20/21

A C T I V I T I E S & A C H I E V E M E N T S : A D V I C E A N D I N F O R M A T I O N

To provide advice and information for cancer survivors we run an online hub for life after cancer.

The hub is hosted on Mission Remission website and accessible through our social media channels. We’ve helped tens of thousands of people share positive stories and practical tips on how to rehabilitate physically, psychologically, and socially after treatment. Our survey shows that over 80% of people are helped by reading our stories and strategies and they’ve been voted ‘helpful’ on our website over 20,000 times.

We help people share resilience, self belief and motivation from others.

We have developed the site so it is now organised into 6 themes:

In 2020/1 we particularly focused on Mission Change - sharing stories of lived experience that bring change in society.

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MISSION REMISSION ANNUAL REPORT 20/21

I wish I’d found Mission Remission earlier. It would have helped me feel less alone and that there are other people who’ve faced the same struggles - people who do go on to get better. Facebook Community Member

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MISSION REMISSION ANNUAL REPORT 20/21

A C T I V I T I E S & A C H I E V E M E N T S : B U I L D I N G A N A C T I V E C O M M U N I T Y

We are proud that our community across all platforms stands at over 15,000 people, and our website used over 500,000 times now, since we were formed.

Hosting Forum & Social Media Communities

Our online forum for cancer survivors on our website and social media provides a safe sanctuary to read and share. We’ve found that our community used the website forum for reading and thinking, and Facebook for communication, so we’ve used the forum primarily for sharing resources. Over 1,000 people are registered with our forum and our resources were accessed over 10,000 times.

The Cancer Survivors’ Book Club

We ran an online book club every month or 2 months, suggested by our community, which allows survivors to explore emotions. ‘Reading helps me find a piece of myself again,’ says one of our readers.

Volunteer Meet-ups

We ran monthly volunteer meet-ups and were thrilled to build a group of over 100 people. This also helped to strengthen our Change programme, so that lived experience impacts service improvements.

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MISSION REMISSION ANNUAL REPORT 20/21

A C T I V I T I E S & A C H I E V E M E N T S : H A C K N E Y & C I T Y P A T I E N T R E C O M M E N D A T I O N S F O R C H A N G E

This project supported North East London NHS providers to improve their cancer services to better meet patients’ needs. Mission Remission and our team of cancer survivors spoke to 73 people who have experienced cancer in Hackney and the City. Discussions lasted an hour.

We listened to people’s experiences of how cancer impacted their lives both during and after treatment. We asked what circumstances were necessary and what support was needed for them to live their lives to the fullest. People shared their experiences of seeking medical and psychological help, the usefulness of health and wellbeing information, the ease of communicating with clinicians and organisations, and how simple it is to navigate the system. We spoke about the ‘pain points’ – the times of desperate frustration that many experienced – but also the good moments when people felt empowered to continue their lives with prompt, holistic support, bolstered by empathetic relationships with clinicians, administrators and their communities.

We did this so that people facing cancer can build a vision for the future - and we built 16 patient-created recommendations for change.

They range from specific and practical improvements around better mental health support, a rehabilitation programme after treatment, better information to help navigate the NHS when cancer signs first arise, and ideas on how the NHS can better listen and improve when collaborating with patients.

We are incredibly proud of this piece of work, with the local NHS commissioner finding it, 'detailed, meaningful, and powerful,' and the most comprehensive patient experience project they've ever been involved with.

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MISSION REMISSION ANNUAL REPORT 20/21

A C T I V I T I E S & A C H I E V E M E N T S : ' S O M E T H I N G ' S N O T R I G H T ' C A M P A I G N

Our five-year campaign (2020-2025), ‘Something’s Not Right’ encourages patients worried about the symptoms of cancer to gain the confidence to say: ‘Something’s Not Right’. It calls for clinicians to know to take these words and symptoms seriously. It also calls for specific policy and system change to ensure faster diagnosis.

2021 was the year of listening and developing our call for change. We listened to people's experiences and ran a survey seeking ideas on how cancer diagnosis could be hastened. We heard from over 350 people sharing their challenges and opportunities for change:

In 2022, we will continue to work with our community on how these findings can improve services, so more people go on to live happy, healthy lives after treatment.

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MISSION REMISSION ANNUAL REPORT 20/21

In this world of guidelines and pathways there’s a worrying loss of trust. We don’t give importance to what patients are saying, or how they feel about their own body. We’re losing trust in the clinician’s art or skill too. With the forms and checklists, the words ‘something’s not right’ fall between the cracks. Referrals get downgraded, quite literally, because the computer says no. GP & breast cancer survivor

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MISSION REMISSION ANNUAL REPORT 20/21

T H A N K Y O U

We’d love to thank our volunteers who run much of our work.

We’d also love the thank the following funders who supported what we do:

City Bridge Trust

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MISSION REMISSION ANNUAL REPORT 20/21

Mission Remission is like sunshine coming through the clouds. Bless you a thousand times over because it can be so lonely. Mission Remission Community Member

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MISSION REMISSION ANNUAL REPORT 20/21

MISSION REMISSION

STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES INCLUDING INCOME AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT FOR THE PERIOD 2ND DECEMBER 2020 TO 1ST DECEMBER 2021

£ £

Income from:

Donations: (Unrestricted) 245 Funders: (Restricted) 9600 City of London Services: 15330 City & Hackney CCG _____ 25175 TOTAL INCOME _____ Expenditure: Administration & Core Work 7197 Charitable Projects 14003 _____ TOTAL EXPENDITURE 21200 _____ Net Income for the year 3975 ______

REMISSION MISSION BALANCE SHEET AS AT 1ST DECEMBER 2021

CURRENT ASSETS
Debtors
Cash in Bank and in hand
Creditors
Net Current Assets
Cash funds from last year end
Cash funds this year end
0
17042
0
17042
14068
18042
£

Independent examiner's report on the accounts

Section A Independent Examiner’s Report

Report to the trustees/
members of
On accounts for the year
ended
Set out on pages		 Mission Remission Mission Remission Mission Remission
1 December 2021 Charity no
(if any)		 1186956

I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity (“the Trust”) for the year ended 01/12/2021 Responsibilities and As the charity's trustees, you are responsible for the preparation of the basis of report accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (“the Act”). I report in respect of my examination of the Trust’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination, I have followed all the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.

Independent I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have examiner's statement come to my attention in connection with the examination which give me cause to believe that in, any material respect:

I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in this report in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.

Signed:
Name:
Relevant professional
qualification(s) or body
(if any):
Address:
 Nick Brereton 27 Sept 2022
Nick Brereton
Institute of Certified Book-keepers
Dockwray Ltd
64 Saville Street

1

Oct 2018

IER

North Shields NE30 1AZ

Section B Disclosure

Only complete if the examiner needs to highlight material matters of concern (see CC32, Independent examination of charity accounts: directions and guidance for examiners).

Give here brief details of any items that the examiner wishes to disclose .

2

Oct 2018

IER