Cancer East of England
This innovative project, fully funded by NHS England: East of England, will integrate the Bridges approach to supporting self-management within Cancer services and evaluate the impact on staff, patients, teams and service pathways.
As part of this region-wide work, we are providing Bridges self-management training to 200 healthcare practitioners across cancer teams and pathways, working across acute, community and primary care settings with practitioners working in patient facing roles.
We’ve worked with Clinical Nurse Specialists, Cancer Navigators, Care Coordinators, GPs and Health and Wellbeing Coaches to name a few!
Bridges training has been adapted to cancer services from our work with people living with cancer to design our ‘Living with and beyond cancer’ book, and from engagement with local Patient Partnership Groups.
As part of the training, practitioners receive the Living with and beyond Cancer books, co-designed books full of stories, hints and tips from people living with and beyond cancer, focusing on the point in a patient’s journey where there is a pause or end in treatment. This book isn’t just more information, it is a guided way to support self-management, making it a fantastic tool for use with patients.
Impact we have seen so far
So far, since their training, practitioners have reported an increase in knowledge about how to integrate the core principles of an effective self-management approach such as Bridges.
They have learnt new language and skills to support effective self-management. They report increased confidence to be able to integrate self-efficacy and self-management principles into their work.
Bridges evidence and other research shows use of these skills and language has a positive impact on patients with long-term conditions such as living with cancer.
This way of working supports patients to develop greater self-efficacy, which is a predictor of successful self-management. If patients are more confident to self-manage their long-term condition, they are more likely to overcome setbacks and feel more in control. (Busse and Jones et al, 2025).
When practitioners integrate Bridges self-management into their practice, the change in self-efficacy experienced by patients leads to improvements in their emotional wellbeing, increases in symptom control, and greater ability to engage in activities that matter to them (Jones et al., 2024).
Recent research has shown that patients are then less reliant on healthcare services for support, which frees up capacity across services by reducing caseloads and waiting lists (Health Economics Paper in Review)
Do you work in cancer in the East of England? Book your place on our free training!
Testimonials
At present, the most noticeable difference is in establishing an effective therapeutic relationship very quickly. I have more of a sense of ‘working together’ with a person, and they seem to feel listened to and more empowered.Physiotherapist, Community Oncology and Specialist Palliative Physiotherapy Team, Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Trust
As a Cancer Nurse I wanted to fix every issue for the patient; however, the course has taught me that it is a combined effort between patient and professional. I would absolutely recommend the Bridges training. I want all my team to do it.Cancer Nurse, James Paget University Hospital NHS Trust
Want to find out more about Bridges training for your cancer team? Chat to us today