The Strategic Advisory Board (SAB) provides advice on the overall progress and direction of the Macmillan HORIZONS Programme. It advises on the strategic direction and how to develop our strategy to share knowledge, methodological approaches and data for greatest impact.

Membership

Chair: Professor Dame Jessica Corner

Pro-Vice-Chancellor (PVC) for Research and Knowledge Exchange University of Nottingham

Jessica is Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research and Knowledge Exchange for the University of Nottingham where she is leading a bold new strategy for the University’s research recently announced at the Royal Society in London by the Minister for Universities and Science. She has held academic appointments at King’s College, the Institute of Cancer Research in London and the University of Southampton. Starting her career as an academic and specialist cancer nurse she has held numerous national roles for the NHS, charity sector and higher education and is an authority on improving care and long-term health outcomes for people with cancer. She is Chair of the UK Health Education Advisory Committee, was a REF 2014 Panel member for Sub Panel 3 Allied Health, Dentistry, Nursing and Pharmacy and was Chair of the Council of Deans for Health 2014-2017. Jessica was awarded a DBE in 2014 for services to Health Care Research and Education and is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.


Professor Claire Foster
Chief Investigator for HORIZONS and Director of the Centre for Psychosocial Research in Cancer: CentRIC+

Professor Claire Foster is Professor of Psychosocial Oncology and Director of the Centre for Psyosocial Research in Cancer: CentRIC+ in the School of Health Sciences, Faculty of Environmental and Life Sciences, University of Southampton. Claire’s research programme focuses on advancing understanding of the health outcomes and experiences of people diagnosed with cancer treated with curative intent. This includes large prospective cohort studies including collection of clinical and patient reported questionnaires to understand the consequences of cancer from diagnosis and over time, how this can impact on people’s daily lives, and identifying areas for intervention. Claire is a member of France’s Institut National du Cancer, Evaluation Committee for Early Breast Cancer.


Professor Andy Davies
Consultant in Medical Oncology, University Hospitals Southampton

Professor Davies is interested in the clinical course of malignant lymphoma, the investigation of novel therapeutic approaches and biomarker identification. He is also interested in the use of high-dose therapy with progenitor cell rescue in malignant disease. Prof Davies has published in all of these areas and has written a number of book chapters and reviews. Professor Davies is Chair of the High-Grade Lymphoma sub-group within the NCRI Lymphoma Clinical Studies Group. Prof Davies is Director Southampton NIHR / CRUK Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre.

Professor Davies is Chair of the HORIZONS Tumour Specific Expert Panel for the Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma cohort.


Dr Jo Armes
Reader in Cancer Care and Lead for eHealth, University of Surrey

Dr Armes’ research programme aims to enhance supportive care provided to patients in order to help optimise the benefits of treatment whilst living as well as possible with the effects of the disease and consequences of its treatment. She has considerable experience of developing complex interventions and evaluating their outcomes through mixed method research designs. Dr Armes was past Chair of the NCRI Psychosocial Oncology and Survivorship Clinical Studies Group.


Professor Peter Smith
Professor of Social Statistics, University of Southampton

Professor Smith has research interests in developing new statistical methodology, including methods for handling non-response and for modelling longitudinal data, and applying sophisticated statistical methods to problems in demography, medicine and health sciences. His publications include articles in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, Series A, B and C, Biometrika and the Journal of the American Statistical Association. Peter was awarded the Royal Statistical Society Guy Medal in Bronze in 1999 and was Joint Editor of Series C of their Journal.

Professor Smith is Chair of the HORIZONS Data Management Committee.


Meera Craston
Head of Evidence, Macmillan Cancer Support

Meera Craston leads the development of Macmillan’s research, evaluation and data-related activities to enable evidence-based decision making, influencing and service improvement, to ultimately improve the lives of people living with cancer. She drives strategic research investment in close partnership with services colleagues across Macmillan, oversees the range of evidence functions within the department, and leads communication and the use of evidence and insight on the growing cancer population and evolving workforce in Macmillan’s health services partnerships across the UK. 

Meera is an Economist by training and an experienced mixed-methods researcher. Prior to joining Macmillan, she was a Director at SQW, a Social Research and Evaluation Consultancy, where she worked for 15 years, and grew and led the firm’s health and care area of work from its infancy. Meera is a great advocate of the personalised care (and integration) agenda, and much of her work has sought to build an evidence base to support and influence its evolution.


Professor Jane Maher
Joint Chief Medical Officer, Macmillan Cancer Support

Professor Maher became Macmillan’s Chief Medical Officer in 1999. She is an NHS clinical leader, and a Consultant Clinical Oncologist at Mount Vernon Cancer Centre and Hillingdon Hospital, where she has worked for more than 20 years. Professor Maher is also a senior clinical lecturer at University College London and Visiting Professor in Cancer and Supportive Care at the Centre for Complexity Management at Hertfordshire University.

In her role at Macmillan, Professor Maher provides medical services advice at board and senior management level and supports the charity's links with the royal colleges, universities, the Department of Health and the NHS.

She has had a long term interest in consequences of cancer treatments. Her activity in this area includes chairing the Maher Committee for the Department of Health in 1995, leading the UK National Audit of Late Effects Pelvic Radiotherapy for the RCR in 2000 and most recently chairing the National Cancer Survivorship Initiative Consequences of Cancer treatments committee. She has written more than 100 published articles and is a National Clinical Advisor for Aftercare and Survivorship for NHS Improvement and UK representative for cancer survivorship in Europe.


Professor Andy Ness
Professor of Epidemiology, University of Bristol

Professor Ness is Head of the Bristol Dental School Lifecourse Epidemiology and Oral Health Research Group and head of research in the School of Oral and Dental Sciences. His interests include early life exposures, nutrition, physical activity, obesity, cardiovascular risk and in cleft lip and palate and head and neck cancer. He has published over 275 papers in peer-reviewed journals. He leads lead the nutrition theme in NIHR Bristol Biomedical Research Centre at the University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust and the University of Bristol and he is chief investigator on the Head and Neck 5000 cohort study.


Professor David Weller
Director of Centre for Population Health Sciences, University of Edinburgh

David Weller graduated from the University of Adelaide in 1982. He undertook PhD studies in Adelaide and Nottingham; after academic posts in Australia he moved to the UK in 2000 and is currently James Mackenzie Professor of General Practice at the University of Edinburgh. He leads the Cancer and Primary Care Research International Network (Ca-PRI), and is a member of the National Cancer Research Institute Primary Care Clinical Studies Development Group (Foundation Chair, from 2003-2010). He has been involved in cancer research in both Australia and the UK; he led the evaluation of the UK Pilot of Colorectal Cancer Screening, and his group in Edinburgh run a programme of research focusing on the roles of primary care in all aspects of cancer control. More recently he has led LMIC programmes, funded by UICC and the British Council, examining early diagnosis and screening in resource-poor settings. David sits on various national and international research and government committees on cancer, and works as a GP in central Edinburgh. He is Director of the University’s Centre for Population Health Sciences.


Professor Galina Velikova
Professor of Psychosocial and Medical Oncology, University of Leeds

Professor Galina Velikova is an academic Medical Oncologist at the University of Leeds and Leeds Teaching Hospitals, UK with over 20 years’ track record of successful patient-centred research using electronic Patient-Reported-Outcome Measures in daily practice and clinical trials.  She currently leads a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) 5-year Programme Grant for applied research on patient self-reported symptoms and toxicity, using an online reporting system (QTool), uniquely integrated in electronic records, along re-designed care pathways for remote monitoring during cancer treatment to improve patient safety. Further research projects evaluate the use of the electronic system for remote monitoring and follow-up of cancer patients after treatment.

Professor Velikova has experience in leading collaborative research, both nationally and internationally, such as Quality of Life sub-studies of international breast cancer trials (TACT2, SUPREMO).  She is the past Chair of the British Psychosocial Oncology Society, past Chair of the EORTC Quality of Life Group; and past President of the International Society for Quality of Life Research (ISOQOL). Prof Velikova is currently the Chair of the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Psychosocial Oncology and Survivorship Clinical Studies Group and is also a member of the board of the EORTC.
Professor Velikova is a practising oncologist (Consultant in Medical Oncology) with clinical work focused on systemic treatment of breast cancer patients with early and advanced disease.

Professor Velikova is Chair of the HORIZONS Tumour Specific Expert Panel for the Breast cancer cohort.


Professor Iain McNeish
Professor of Oncology and Head of the Division of Cancer within the Department of Surgery and Cancer, Imperial College London

Iain McNeish is Professor of Oncology and Head of the Division of Cancer within the Department of Surgery and Cancer.  He is also the Director of the Ovarian Cancer Action Research Centre and Cancer theme lead in the Imperial NIHR Biomedical Research Centre (BRC).  Externally, he is Chair of the NCRI Gynaecological CSG.

His research focusses on ovarian cancer, specifically developing improved therapies through improved understanding of disease biology.  With James Brenton in Cambridge, he co-leads the BriTROC translational research collaborative and holds a programme grant from Cancer Research UK investigating copy number alterations in ovarian high-grade serous carcinoma (HGSC) as a possible prognostic and predictive biomarker.  His group has also recently developed novel transplantable murine models of HGSC using CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing technology to allow investigation of novel therapies in an immunocompetent model.  These transplantable cells are freely available to researchers.


Mr Richard Stephens
Chair NCRI Consumer Forum

Richard Stephens has personal experience of two cancers (Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and recurrent basal cell carcinomas), a heart emergency, and several other health challenges.  He has participated in four interventional clinical trials and eight other studies. 

Richard Chairs the NCRI’s Consumer Forum and serves on strategic groups for NIHR, NCRAS, PHE, MRC and Glasgow CTUs, NHS England BBMRI-ERIC (the European Biobanking collaborative) and Genomics England.  He sits on Cancer Research UK’s main funding committees, and has roles with Eupati and with industry, including ad hoc consultancy work for Astra-Zeneca (past) and Pfizer (present).

Richard was the patient representative on the Independent Cancer Taskforce that produced the 2015 Cancer Strategy for England, “Achieving World Class Cancer Outcomes”, and brings the “slightly uncertain voice of the partly-informed patient” to NHS England’s Cancer Patient Experience Advisory Group.
Richard is a founder member of the AllTrials campaign and the useMYdata movement. He is the joint Editor-in-Chief of BioMed Central’s Journal of Research Involvement and Engagement.  In his previous life he worked in social housing and education and his spare time he enjoys regular battles of wills with a gym treadmill, trying to locate the correct clinic in his local hospital, and sleeping.

Mr Stephens is Chair of the HORIZONS User Reference Group.


Sarah Benger
Senior Programme Manager, NHS England

Sarah Benger is the Strategy Lead for the National Cancer Programme at NHS England. She previously led the LWBC workstream and NHSE and led a number of policy and influencing campaigns working in the Policy team and Macmillan Cancer Support. Her background is in law and public policy.


Professor Alison Richardson
Clinical Professor in Cancer Nursing and End of Life Care, University of Southampton

Professor Alison Richardson is Clinical Professor of Cancer Nursing and End of Life Care at the university of Southampton and University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust. Alison holds a clinical academic appointment, which means she combines clinical practice and research. She works in a senior leadership position at Southampton General Hospital where she works alongside members of the multidisciplinary team caring for patients with cancer and approaching the end of life to improve patient care through the generation and application of research. Her research centres on understanding the experiences of people affected by cancer and other life limiting illnesses and developing nurse-led interventions that can respond to the issues and problems that people have to confront as part of their day-to-day lives.

 
Dr Anna Gavin
Founding Director, Northern Ireland Cancer Registry

Dr Gavin directs the work of the N. Ireland Cancer Registry (NICR) which assimilates and collates data on cancers and pre-malignant conditions in N. Ireland for research, education and planning of services.  The NICR cooperates with the National Cancer Registry of Ireland to produce All Ireland Cancer Epidemiology reports and peer reviewed publications.  She is the N. Ireland lead for the Internal Cancer Benchmarking Partnership and was responsible for ensuring N. Ireland was included in this project examining differences in cancer survival across European, Australian and Canadian jurisdictions.


Dr Lesley Smith
Senior Programme Manager, Living with and beyond cancer, NHS England

Lesley is passionate about improving the quality of life for people affected by cancer. She joined the NHS England cancer programme in early 2018 and is leading the work to deliver the national cancer strategy commitments on Living With and Beyond Cancer. This follows 7 years at Macmillan Cancer Support working on their national programme on consequences of cancer treatment. Prior to this, she worked in NHS service improvement, corporate planning and performance management. Her early career was in biomedical research, and she has a PhD in toxicology.

The Tumour Specific Expert Panels (TSEP) provide advice on study methods (including eligibility criteria, questionnaire content and the use of medical terminology) for each cohort in the Macmillan HORIZONS Programme. These groups include people affected by the cancer type, oncologists, surgeons, specialist nurses, allied health professionals (AHPs), and researchers.
 

TSEP for the Breast cancer cohort

Chair: Professor Galina Velikova
Professor of Psychosocial and Medical Oncology, University of Leeds

Professor Galina Velikova is an academic Medical Oncologist at the University of Leeds and Leeds Teaching Hospitals, UK with over 20 years’ track record of successful patient-centred research using electronic Patient-Reported-Outcome Measures in daily practice and clinical trials.  She currently leads a National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) 5-year Programme Grant for applied research on patient self-reported symptoms and toxicity, using an online reporting system (QTool), uniquely integrated in electronic records, along re-designed care pathways for remote monitoring during cancer treatment to improve patient safety. Further research projects evaluate the use of the electronic system for remote monitoring and follow-up of cancer patients after treatment. Professor Velikova has experience in leading collaborative research, both nationally and internationally, such as Quality of Life sub-studies of international breast cancer trials (TACT2, SUPREMO).

Professor Velikova is currently the Chair of the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Psychosocial Oncology and Survivorship Clinical Studies Group and is also a member of the board of the EORTC.
 

Current membership

Member	Role	Organisation
Dr Ellen Copson	Associate Professor in Medical Oncology	University Hospital Southampton
Mr Ramsey Cutress	Academic Breast Cancer Surgeon	University Hospital Southampton
Professor Diana Eccles	Professor of Cancer Genetics	University Hospital Southampton
Professor Debbie Fenlon	Professor of Nursing	Swansea University
Professor Diana Harcourt	Professor of Appearance & Health Psychology	University of the West of England
Dr Angela McCullagh	Patient Representative	NCRI Consumer Forum
Dr Jill Noble	Consultant Medical Oncology (Breast and AOS)	The Royal Marsden Hospital
Irene Soulsby	Patient Representative	-
Dr Susan Stanway	Consultant Medical Oncology	The Royal Marsden Hospital
Dr Isabel White	Clinical Research Fellow in Psychosexual Practice	The Royal Marsden Hospital

 

TSEP for the Gynaecological cancers cohort

Chair: Dr Ros Glasspool
Consultant Medical Oncologist, Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre, Glasgow

Based at Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre and working with our Clinical Trials Unit in Glasgow, Dr Rosalind Glasspool is running a number of important clinical trials for women’s cancers. Through her work, she hopes to improve treatments for women with ovarian or womb cancers.

More specifically, in one trial, Dr Glasspool is looking at whether it is more effective to use a different drug to the standard chemotherapy treatments currently given to women with a rare type of ovarian or womb cancer called clear cell carcinoma. She is also investigating whether new drugs can safely be added to standard chemotherapy for ovarian cancers that have some back. If so, she and her team her team will go on to investigate whether adding a new drug also improves survival and quality of life for these women.

Ultimately, if Dr Glasspool finds that the new treatments are more effective and cause fewer side-effects than the standard chemotherapy treatment alone, then this work could change the way that women with ovarian or womb cancers are treated, helping more people survive their disease.

Dr Glasspool is a member of the National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Gynaecological Clinical Studies Group and is chair of the Ovarian subgroup.

Current membership

Member	Role	Organisation
Mr Simon Crawford	Consultant in Gynaecological Oncology	Spire Southampton Hospital
Beryl Elledge	Patient Representative	NCRI Consumer Forum
Dr Alison Farmer	Nurse Specialist Psycho-Oncology	University Hospital Southampton
Dr Emma Hudson	Consultant Clinical Oncologist	Velindre Cancer Centre
Dr Anne Lanceley	Senior Lecturer, Women's Cancer	University College London (UCL)
Raluca Nagy	Patient Representative	-
Professor Eila Watson	Professor in Supportive Cancer Care	Oxford Brookes University
Dr Isabel White	Clinical Research Fellow in Psychosexual Practice	The Royal Marsden Hospital

 

TSEP for the Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma cohort

Chair: Professor Andy Davies
Consultant in Medical Oncology, University Hospitals Southampton

Professor Davies is interested in the clinical course of malignant lymphoma, the investigation of novel therapeutic approaches and biomarker identification. He is also interested in the use of high-dose therapy with progenitor cell rescue in malignant disease. Professor Davies has published in all of these areas and has written a number of book chapters and reviews.

Professor Davies is Chair of the High-Grade Lymphoma sub-group within the NCRI Lymphoma Clinical Studies Group. Prof Davies is Director Southampton NIHR / CRUK Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre.

Current membership

Member	Role	Organisation
Ian Danks	Patient Representative	-
Gilly Howard-Jones	Clinical Nurse Researcher	University Hospital Southampton
Dr Charalampia Kyriakou	Consultant Haematologist	Northwick Park Hospital
Dr Jemma Longley	Consultant Haematologist	University Hospital Southampton
Dr Jackie Rafferty	Patient Representative	-
Professor Simon Rule	Professor in Haematology	Derriford Hospital
Dr Brooke Swash	Lecturer in Psychology	University of Chester and University of Cambridge
Stephen Scowcroft	Head of Business Development	Lymphoma Action

 

The User Reference Group (URG) provides advice on a range of aspects of the Macmillan HORIZONS programme. For example, the way participants are recruited, updated and contacted in the HORIZONS programme; including participant documentation and participant burden. The URG also advises on wider engagement.
 


Chair: Mr Richard Stephens
Chair NCRI Consumer Forum

Richard Stephens has personal experience of two cancers (Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and recurrent basal cell carcinomas), a heart emergency, and several other health challenges.  He has participated in four interventional clinical trials and eight other studies. 

Richard Chairs the NCRI’s Consumer Forum and serves on strategic groups for NIHR, NCRAS, PHE, MRC and Glasgow CTUs, NHS England BBMRI-ERIC (the European Biobanking collaborative) and Genomics England.  He sits on Cancer Research UK’s main funding committees, and has roles with Eupati and with industry, including ad hoc consultancy work for Astra-Zeneca (past) and Pfizer (present).

Richard was the patient representative on the Independent Cancer Taskforce that produced the 2015 Cancer Strategy for England, “Achieving World Class Cancer Outcomes”, and brings the “slightly uncertain voice of the partly-informed patient” to NHS England’s Cancer Patient Experience Advisory Group.
Richard is a founder member of the AllTrials campaign and the useMYdata movement. He is the joint Editor-in-Chief of BioMed Central’s Journal of Research Involvement and Engagement.  In his previous life he worked in social housing and education and his spare time he enjoys regular battles of wills with a gym treadmill, trying to locate the correct clinic in his local hospital, and sleeping.

Current membership

• Elspeth Banks
• Beryl Ellegde
• Dr Angela McCallagh
• Raluca Nagy
• Sue Natt
• Janette Rawlinson
• Dr Jackie Rafferty
• Susan Restorick-Banks
• Stephen Scowcroft
• Irene Soulsby
• Lesley Turner

A number of national and international experts in the field advise on a broad range of areas related to the HORIZONS Programme. The intention is that this will lead to mutually beneficial collaborations in the future.

The DMC monitors recruitment progress and data quality and advises on data management and handling. The DMC also reviews requests to access study data from outside the HORIZONS Co-Ordinating Centre and advises on data sharing protocols.

We have a long history of working closely with people affected by cancer to design, develop and deliver research programmes and projects (our Research Partners).