Headlines 2022

Highlights of the year

Our Annual Highlights 2021/22

Dominated but not defined by the pandemic During 2021/22, our efforts at The Christie continued to revolve around providing safe, quality services for our patients during an unprecedented global pandemic. This year, The Christie has continued to operate as a protected site, working under strict biosecurity measures to ensure we have been consistently able to treat our patients safely. We have been amazed by our patients, who have adapted to the necessary changes in the best spirit possible. We understood how difficult it has been to ask patients to attend important appointments alone and to restrict visiting, but patients responded with positivity and acceptance, remaining reassured by all we have done for the safety of those in our care. Our staff have continued to go the extra mile under exceptional circumstances, and for that we couldn’t be more thankful and proud. Not only have we looked after our own patients, we have also provided some additional treatment for patients who may usually have received their cancer care in other hospitals across our network. Right now we are very much focused on providing business as usual for our patients, including those who have been affected by COVID-19. Having weathered the storm so far, we continue to take a cautious approach to the easing of measures onsite, but we have fortunately been able to ease some of the restrictions as we learn to live with this virus and return to a sense of normality whilst protecting our vulnerable patients.

Using feedback to boost care As we continue to strive to get our services back to normal following COVID-19, our strategy at The Christie remains focused on four key themes: leading cancer care, The Christie experience, local and specialist care, and best outcomes. Our desire is to always give the very best care and treatment to our patients and we work tirelessly to ensure everything we do is focused on this goal. Feedback is one of the main ways we identify our strategy is working, and we continue to perform well in surveys and patient feedback exercises. The Christie once again received excellent results in the annual national inpatient survey.

Improving our services The Christie is proud to be the largest radiotherapy provider in the NHS. We are also the largest provider in Europe, with 1 in 20 radiotherapy treatments delivered at The Christie. This year saw the continued expansion of our state-of-the-art radiotherapy treatment using the MR-guided linear accelerator (MR-linac) which is the first machine of its kind to do real-time MRI scans while it targets X-ray beams at tumours, making it more accurate and reducing side effects. Being able to more specifically target tumours and avoid more healthy tissue around them means the machine can target X-rays better. The £5.3m machine was part funded by donations to The Christie charity and this year we were delighted to able to begin to treat patients with lung cancer with this important new technique. Our staff: the jewel in our crown Everything we achieve at The Christie is only possible because of our staff and their hard work and dedication. We continue to perform well in staff surveys, with the majority of employees saying they would recommend the hospital to family and friends. The success of our clinicians also continues to be celebrated with many receiving praise and awards regionally and nationally for their work.

06