Published earlier this year, the National Cancer Plan for England represents a significant step forward in the fight against cancer. Over the next decade, the plan aims to save an additional 320,000 lives and support many more people to live well, either following treatment or while managing cancer as a long-term condition.

The plan sets out clear and measurable ambitions to meet cancer waiting time standards, improve survival rates and enhance quality of life. It also outlines important changes to the way cancer care is organised and delivered. This includes a strategic shift towards digital solutions to improve access to technology and enable more care to be delivered in community settings. Alongside this, there is a strong emphasis on prevention and earlier diagnosis to maximise patient outcomes.

Embedding partnerships in cancer care

Across the Midlands, work is already underway at regional, system and place levels to connect this national ambition with local delivery, with a shared understanding of what is required to enable faster progress against the plan's goals.

The Midlands Cancer Alliances are working closely with a range of NHS organisations to support the prioritisation, funding and delivery of cancer transformation programmes, tailored to the needs of each place. An additional element of support has recently been established, focused on collaboration with industry partners to harness external expertise and knowledge through structured partnership working.

A small, shared team – hosted by University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust and supported by NHS Arden & GEM – has been established to lead this work. The Life Science Hub focuses on building partnerships, identifying available capabilities across industry and developing practical projects and support offers aligned to the immediate performance improvement priorities of NHS cancer teams across the region. This hub works in close partnership with trusts and industry to identify opportunities where additional value can be delivered.

Alongside industry engagement, there is strong interest in aligning support from regional universities. Academic expertise and research capability are being mapped and matched to the immediate needs of cancer teams, ensuring that improvement opportunities are both relevant and implementable.

The aim is to align capabilities and support offers across the full cancer care pathway, from referral and diagnosis through to treatment and ongoing care. This includes identifying bottlenecks to and opportunities for improvement such as process and pathway redesign, technology adoption and optimisation, digital and AI-enabled decision support, and new care models that can be co-developed and scaled. In parallel, attention is given to identifying support for training, education, knowledge sharing and adoption to ensure improvements are embedded and sustained.

Developing a shared understanding of collective strengths, capabilities, gaps and areas where support is most needed across care pathways depends on an open and honest culture, with transparency from all partners from the outset.

Early partnerships in action

Several early examples demonstrate how partnership support is beginning to align at trust, pathway and system level. At an individual trust level, partners have been brought in to support reviews of cancer improvement plans, working alongside clinical and operational teams to jointly identify and prioritise interventions that can deliver the greatest impact on challenged pathways.

At a pathway level, cross-industry partners are being brought together to align support across specific tumour pathways. This includes demand and capacity modelling, pathway redesign, digital platform development and AI-driven decision support.

While collaboration between industry partners is not always common practice, it can be achieved and scaled to support system-wide improvement. By bringing partners together as part of a joined up improvement team offer, we are enabling the region to develop a shared understanding of how oncology care delivery models can be improved, with a focus on efficiency and productivity. This improvement model will then be made available for all 23 trusts in the Midlands.

In addition, industry partners are being encouraged to support communities of practice focused on improvement and shared learning across the Midlands, creating opportunities to learn, innovate and improve together.

Building long-term success

Meaningful transformation is rarely delivered through a single programme; it depends on long‑term partnerships that endure through leadership changes, funding cycles and operational pressures. To support this, we have established a Collaborative Working Agreement that sets out shared principles, governance, roles and practical expectations for working together. Developed iteratively with NHS, industry and academic partners, it provides a clear and proportionate framework for consistent collaboration in real‑world settings. By giving partners confidence around scope, decision‑making and accountability, the framework reduces friction, builds trust and enables pace, recognising that effective governance is a critical enabler of progress.

The challenges facing cancer services are significant, but so too are the opportunities. Through the Life Science Hub, work is underway to test how added-value support, practical improvement tools and targeted resources can be mobilised around immediate system priorities. By strengthening purposeful collaboration between the NHS, industry and academia, a collaborative ecosystem is being created, one in which partnership becomes a strategic capability, turning shared ambition into better outcomes for people affected by cancer.

Alison Tonge is executive director of strategy, planning and innovation at NHS Arden & GEM, Sarah Hughes is managing director at the West Midlands Cancer Alliance, Simon Pizzey is associate director of policy and partnerships at University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust, and Victoria Millward is managing director at the East Midlands Cancer Alliance. Together, they lead the Midlands Cancer Alliances Life Science Hub.