Cancerbackup was launched as a national cancer information service in October 1985. Its founder, Dr Vicky Clement-Jones, through her own experience of cancer, realised that cancer patients, and their families and friends, had a great need for high quality and up to date information, practical advice and support.
Cancerbackup meets this need with a free cancer information service staffed by qualified and experienced cancer nurses, publications on all aspects of cancer written specifically for patients and their families (available in full on this website) and a growing number of Cancerbackup local centres in hospitals up and down the country, also staffed by specialist cancer nurses.
Each year the Cancerbackup nurses provide information and support for nearly 50,000 cancer patients and their families by telephone, letter and email and Cancerbackup provides hundreds of thousands of booklets and factsheets on every aspect of cancer. The Cancerbackup website currently has over 3.7million pages viewed each month.
The nurses are supported by around two hundred cancer specialists to help them provide the highest quality information and the Cancerbackup database has the most comprehensive list of resources, organisations and support groups for cancer patients in the UK.
Cancerbackup supports health professionals with information on controversial and difficult cancer topics written specifically for doctors and with the most comprehensive listing of UK Cancer treatment guidelines.
Cancerbackup is entirely supported by voluntary donations, trusts and corporate sponsorship. We are enormously grateful to the many people who give so generously and to our trust and corporate sponsors. Wherever possible Cancerbackup acknowledges that sponsorship on this website and in our publications.
The charity has undergone two name changes. Originally founded in 1985 as BACUP (British Association of Cancer United Patients), the name was changed in 1998 to CancerBACUP. In spring 2006, CancerBACUP then became Cancerbackup. The reason for the changes is simple: so that people understand what the organisation does and can find it easily and quickly in telephone directories, indexes, databases and on the internet.