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2022-12-01-accounts

ANNUAL REPORT 2021/2022

TABLE OF CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3
WHO ARE WE 4
WHY DO WE EXIST? 5
STRUCTURE, GOVERNANCE & MANAGEMENT 9
THE IMPACT WE'VE HAD 11
ACTIVITIES AND ACHIEVEMENTS 15
REFLECTIONS 29
THANK YOU 31
FINANCIAL STATEMENT 33

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MISSION REMISSION ANNUAL REPORT 21/22

E X E C U T I V E S U M M A R Y

Executive Summary

This report covers the period of activity for the charity Mission Remission from: 02/12/2021 to 01/12/2022

Statement from Chair:

Looking back at 2021/22 I am in awe of the hard work and dedication with which everyone involved with our charity has been working towards our common goal of bettering the life experience of people living in remission across the UK.

I must thank all of you who have and continue to support us, be it with donations, engaging with our support activities and campaigns, or with your time as a member of our trustee team or many action teams. Without our supporters so much of what we have achieved in 2021/22 and that we have already got planned for 2022/23 would not be possible.

Becoming the charity's first Chair has been both a huge learning curve as well as a real honour. The work Mission Remission does is very close to my heart given my own lived experience with cancer and being someone living in remission myself. The trust Laura and the Trustee team have placed in me throughout the year since I transitioned from being a Trustee solely to also being Chair has been not only kind of them, but humbling.

The charity enters this next period with a strong leadership team, experienced and dedicated Trustees and it's first employee! I am confident that 2022/23 will be another year of growth and success for Mission Remission allowing us to continue helping more of our community thrive.

Hasan M Reza Chairman Mission Remission

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MISSION REMISSION ANNUAL REPORT 21/22

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 a peer-support 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 21/22

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

we exist because % 9 0 of cancer sufferers feel the time after cancer treatment is just as traumatic as the diagnosis*

*Breast Cancer Care

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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.

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 21/22

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

Mission Remission champions cancer survivors.

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.

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 have 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.

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MISSION REMISSION ANNUAL REPORT 21/22

So glad this charity exists. Resources for cancer survivors are hard to find. It’s wrong to post alongside people who are still being treated or have a terminal diagnosis, like gloating that I made it to the other side and I'm still complaining.

Mission Remission Community Member

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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 and 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 until December 2022 Joe Sargeant, Treasurer from December 2022 Emily Hodge, Secretary Emma Robertson Jane Spurgeon Kasmyn Chen Ryan Pickett

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 CEO, 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 2021-2022.

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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!' Mission Remission Community Member

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T H E I M P A C T W E ' V E H A D We have 15,000 organic members of our active Facebook community

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MISSION REMISSION ANNUAL REPORT 21/22

T H E I M P A C T W E ' V E H A D

Over 80% of survivors say reading our practical tips improves their wellbeing

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T H E I M P A C T W E ' V E H A D

Our stories and strategies have been voted helpful over 20,000

times.

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T H E I M P A C T W E ' V E H A D

Our Mission Diagnosis work alone was shared with 145000 , people, with over 1000 people reporting using our support themselves

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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 21/22 are summarised below:

Mission Walk & Talk:

Mission Community:

Online community support +Daily online chats

Mission Diagnosis:

Mission Change:

North East London Strategic Change

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MISSION REMISSION ANNUAL REPORT 21/22

A C T I V I T I E S & A C H I E V E M E N T S : M I S S I O N W A L K & T A L K ( 1 )

Aims

Mission Walk & Talk aimed to help us all get out there walking and talking again. It improved fitness and built connections.

We all know how important exercise is to fitness rehab after cancer treatment. Often, the first hurdle to returning to exercise is self-belief – having faith that you can do it.

The ‘Walk & Talk’ Challenge

We ran a weekly ‘walk and talk’ challenge, whereby we encouraged our community to walk, hike, or ramble with someone they cared about, or someone who inspired them. Whether this was an old friend, family member, idol, changemaker, community leader, or someone who’s helped you in the past. We shared stories of our own ‘walk and talks’ – and shared others’ stories too.

Nordic Walking Classes

We piloted a monthly Nordic Walking class for 6 months. The pandemic has been particularly hard for our community, many of whom were shi elding. This was an opportunity to take first steps back to group activities.

Exercise Check-ins & Support

We ran weekly check-ins and support seeking and sharing fitness wins and struggles, through our monthly online catch-ups, social media, and our support emails.

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A C T I V I T I E S & A C H I E V E M E N T S : M I S S I O N W A L K & T A L K ( 2 )

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A C T I V I T I E S & A C H I E V E M E N T S : M I S S I O N C O M M U N I T Y

Aims

Mission Community aimed to provide daily peer-support online, supported by our volunteers.

Online Community Support & Daily Chats

Our Facebook community, run by our wonderful team of volunteers, led daily talking points and chats around the key challenges and trigger points that people face after cancer. These include topics such as: anxiety, fear of the future, isolation, feelings of overwhelm, returning to work, and dealing with new health issues.

The Cancer Survivors’ Book Club

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

IMPACT

We supported over 15,000 people

Our website has been used over 500,000 times

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Thank you for this community. The one place I can feel honest. Mission Remission Community Member

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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 & I N F O R M A T I O N

Aims

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

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

In 2021/2 we particularly focused on sharing our website resources through social media channels to promote discussion and community support.

IMPACT

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MISSION REMISSION ANNUAL REPORT 21/22

A C T I V I T I E S & A C H I E V E M E N T S : M I S S I O N D I A G N O S I S ( 1 )

Aims

To prevent life-long disabilities after cancer and save lives by speeding up diagnosis.

To also help people find purpose after trauma, by amplifying voices and experiences of diagnosis delays.

Every month a cancer diagnosis is delayed, it increases the risk of death from cancer by 10% (BMJ). At Mission Remission, we’ve identified barriers people face to diagnosis, and this project helps dismantle them, so more people are diagnosed quickly – and lives are saved.

Even before the pandemic, over 50% of cancer patients are not referred along the cancer pathway and are not flagged by GPs as ‘urgent’ (Public Health England research). Covid exacerbated the issue and meanwhile, international comparisons paint a poor picture of UK cancer care, diagnosing later than comparable countries.

Our goal was to increase early diagnosis of cancer and help more people champion their health and survive the disease. A faster diagnosis can often result in less invasive treatment and a quicker recovery. To do that, we needed to find out where the gaps were.

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A C T I V I T I E S & A C H I E V E M E N T S : M I S S I O N D I A G N O S I S ( 2 )

In our 2021 survey, we asked our community how their cancer diagnosis might’ve been hastened. We heard from over 350 people sharing these challenges and opportunities for change:

We found people often feel scared, powerless, isolated, unheard, and unconfident when faced with bodily changes. Without information or tools to help them feel more in control, this can result in feelings of frustration or avoidant behaviour.

Our findings highlight how UK residents are more reluctant to bother GPs, while GPs are less likely to refer people to hospital at an early stage.

We also found a broad information gap:

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A C T I V I T I E S & A C H I E V E M E N T S : M I S S I O N D I A G N O S I S ( 3 )

We produced a detailed report of our findings through workshops, online discussions, email narratives, and phone calls; developing five patient-driven calls for change from our survey and wider change work.

These are:

  1. Strategic Change: Make improving the ‘patient journey’ to diagnosis (and dismantling barriers) a strategic priority, with a focus on communication and navigation

  2. ‘Dismantling Barriers’ Workstream: In co-production with patients, identify barriers to diagnosis nationally and locally – and dismantle them.

  3. Communication & Navigational Tools: Create patient

  4. empowerment tools and embed these in local communities.

  5. Address Inequalities & Care for ALL patients in Performance

  6. Data: Reduce the time to diagnosis for ALL patients, not just urgent referrals.

  7. Next Steps: ‘Next Step’ discussions must be an explicit part of every GP interaction, e.g., when do we return if symptoms don’t clear up?

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A C T I V I T I E S & A C H I E V E M E N T S : M I S S I O N D I A G N O S I S ( 4 )

This project has never been so important. Something isn’t working in the pathway to cancer diagnosis. This work will make cancer symptoms easier to talk about, make the pathway more straightforward, and support people receiving help during their very first contact – whether that’s with a receptionist, a phlebotomist, a practice nurse or to a GP Dr Jane Spurgeon, GP, Cancer Survivor, & Mission Remission Trustee

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A C T I V I T I E S & A C H I E V E M E N T S : M I S S I O N D I A G N O S I S ( 5 )

IMPAC T

Our calls were featured in: The Guardian BBC Breakfast & Newsnight Dorset Echo The EDP The HSJ Daily Mail We were invited to meet Sajid Javid, the then Health Secretary, who supported our mission Wessex Cancer Alliance in Dorset picked up our findings to support their communications and messaging with health services To have a wider impact, we would like this work to be further funded demonstrate how increasing early diagnosis leads to less invasive treatment and a quicker recovery

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MISSION REMISSION ANNUAL REPORT 21/22

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

Aims

To help people navigate to a faster diagnosis when feeling unwell

The Wessex Cancer Alliance in Dorset picked up our Mission Daignosis findings to work with, to help people get a faster diagnosis when feeling unwell. The disseminated much of our findings to their community through social media and through their community groups in person and online.

IMPACT

We shared resources with 145,000 people and 1237 people reported actively used them directly.

We also helped people by sharing:

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MISSION REMISSION ANNUAL REPORT 21/22

A C T I V I T I E S & A C H I E V E M E N T S : M I S S I O N C H A N G E ( 1 )

North East London Strategic Change - Aims

To implement calls for change from people with cancer in North East London and support health commissioners to ensure services meet people’s needs

Our 'lived experience' project involved interviewing 73 people seeking their experiences of cancer and what might need to change. With our community, we developed 16 calls for change and presented these to the North East London Cancer Alliance, who sought our help in their strategic plan for 2022.

We also supported North East London commissioners to embed the patient recommendations within their strategic plan and look forward to further collaborations.

IMPACT

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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A C T I V I T I E S & A C H I E V E M E N T S : M I S S I O N C H A N G E ( 2 )

Changemakers Pilot - Aims To bring together our community to support Mission Diagnosis, along with exploring future ideas for change

We piloted 6 changemaker meetups to discuss how and to what purpose we could develop further change work. It also allowed us to ensure our community were core to our diagnosis work.

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

REFLECTIONS

years

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MISSION REMISSION ANNUAL REPORT 21/22

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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T H A N K Y O U

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

We’d also like the thank our funders who have supported us:

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Never underestimate how important Mission Remission has been to my recovery. Just having a place where you can explore what’s happened in a positive way has been invaluable. Mission Remission Community Member

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MISSION REMISSION

STATEMENT OF FINANCIAL ACTIVITIES INCLUDING INCOME AND EXPENDITURE ACCOUNT FOR THE PERIOD 2ND DECEMBER 2021 TO 1ST DECEMBER 2022

£ £ 406 55,515

Income from: Donations: (Unrestricted) 406 55,515 Funders: (Restricted) Sports England National Lottery Warwick Council Postcode Lottery Services: 11,420 North East London NHS Commissioners TOTAL INCOME 67,341

Expenditure:
Administration & Fundraising
Charitable Projects
TOTAL EXPENDITURE
Net Income for the year		 14,148
40,861
55,009
12,332

Hasan M Reza Chairman Mission Remission

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MISSION REMISSION ANNUAL REPORT 21/22

MISSION REMISSION

BALANCE SHEET AS AT 1ST DECEMBER 2022

CURRENT ASSETS £
Debtors 0
Cash in Bank and in hand 30,375
Creditors 0
Net Current Assets 30,375
Cash funds from last year end 18,043
Cash funds this year end 30,375

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CHARITY COMMISSION FOR ENGLAND AND WALES Independent examinerfs report on the accounts Soctlon A Ind•p•ndonl Examlnorfs Roport Report to the trust￿1 members of Mbssion Rernlss￿n On accounts for th• yoar •nded 1 December 2022 Charlty no (If any) 1186956 Sot out on pages I rep)rt to the trustees on my eXaMinatic￿ of the acujunts of the aLw)ve d￿rity (Ihe Trust") the year ended R•spon•lbllltl•s and As the charity trustees of the Trust, you are responsibbe for the preparats'on basls of roport of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charits'es Act 2011 {Ihe Act"). I report in resped of my examinatN)n of the Trust's a￿Unts carried out uTrJer section 145 of the 2011 Ad and in carrying out my examination. I have followed the applicabkn Diredions given by the Charity Commiss1¢ under section 145(5Mb) of the ACL I hav8 completed my examination. l o)nfimi that no material matters have come to my attentson in connection with the 8xamination which gNeS me cause to believe that in, any material resp8cL' acctyjnting rec(*ds were not kept in accordance wllh section 130 of the Act or the acc¥)unts do not accord with the acuunting records Indop•ndent examlnerfs statsm•nt I have no Conc￿ and have come a¢xoss no other matters In connectlon ¥￿th the examinat￿n lo whth attention should be drawn In order to enable proper uTraerstanding of the aCL￿Unts to be reached. Slgned: Niek Br¢rtton 20 June 2023 Nam•: Nlck 8f8reton Rolovanl profos$lonal qualSflrAllon(s) or body (If any): Member ICB Addros•: Do¢kwray Ltd 11x1 Hobyard Street North Shields NE30 1 NA 35 MSSION REMSSION ANNUAL REPORT 21122