Greater Manchester Cancer Alliance has been shortlisted for two awards at the prestigious 2025 HSJ Awards recognising our innovation in early diagnosis and cancer diagnostics.
The Alliance is shortlisted for two HSJ Awards, including NHS Communications of the Year Award
The Alliance is nominated for NHS Communications Initiative of the Year Award for the work rolling out two mobile units under the “This Van Can” banner to raise awareness about the importance of early diagnosis for ovarian and bowel cancer.
Alliance staff are also in the running for the Modernising Diagnostics Award for the work to roll out an integrated AI systems into chest x-rays at seven NHS Trusts in the region. This is helping to support more rapid diagnosis, smarter referrals and improved cancer detection.
This year’s awards attracted more than 1,250 entries from across the health sector. With only 245 projects and individuals making it through to the final shortlist, the competition has been incredibly tough, demonstrating the impressive scale of talent, commitment, and impact across the NHS and wider healthcare landscape.
Dr Sarah Taylor, Associate Medical Director at Greater Manchester Cancer Alliance, said: “It’s fantastic to see our work at Greater Manchester Cancer Alliance has once again been recognised by being shortlisted for the prestigious HSJ Awards with not one but two entries! This shows how in Greater Manchester we are really making waves in the move from analogue to digital, sickness to prevention and hospital to community with exciting projects using AI to help our doctors find or rule out lung cancer earlier and multi-layered communications and engagement initiatives using mobile vehicles to deliver important, relatable and effective cancer awareness information into the hearts of our communities.”
Ali Jones, Director of Commissioning and Early Diagnosis at Greater Manchester Cancer Alliance, oversaw the team behind the “This Van Can” cancer awareness roadshows which visited 96 locations over six months.
She said: “The nomination recognises an enormous amount of work which went into these two cancer awareness roadshows.
“We know early diagnosis saves lives and we wanted to take vital symptom awareness messages into the communities that needed this most.
“Feedback from visitors showed an increase in both confidence and knowledge about cancer symptoms.
“We were delighted to work with the Dianne Oxberry Trust and Target Ovarian Cancer on our ovarian cancer awareness roadshow which featured real women from the region affected by the cancer. Meanwhile one of our patient representatives who had herself had bowel cancer worked on the bowel cancer awareness roadshow and we were pleased to receive feedback and awareness leaflets from Bowel Cancer UK.”
Dr Rhidian Bramley, Consultant Radiologist and Digital and Innovation lead at the Greater Manchester Cancer Alliance, led the AIRPORT study – working with Annalise AI and Sectra Imaging which is nominated for the Modernising Diagnostics Award.
Dr Bramley said: “The AIRPORT study is the first known real-world chest x-ray AI implementation to evaluate both clinical and cost-effectiveness in line with NICE guidance.
“It is supporting more rapid diagnosis, smarter CT referrals, improved cancer detection, and greater efficiency across the imaging system. We are delighted to have this work recognised.”
