Mace & Menter to co-design delivery plan with Breast Cancer Now
Innovation and design consultancy Mace & Menter has been selected by Breast Cancer Now to collaborate with staff across the organisation to review service delivery. The firm will work to co-design a new model for future support service delivery.
Formed in 2015 by the merger of Breast Cancer Campaign and Breakthrough Breast Cancer, Breast Cancer Now is the UK’s largest breast cancer charity. It currently supports around 8,000 people per year through a range of support services, and have an ambitious strategy to scale this to 15,000 by 2026 – as well as a declared action plan that "by 2050, everyone who develops breast cancer will live".
However, the existing processes and systems for managing referrals, registrations and support service delivery were identified as a barrier to the planned growth. Breast Cancer Now subsequently realised that it would need to optimise and streamline end-to-end user journeys to create more intuitive sign-up paths and joined up experiences. That’s when it tapped experts from Mace & Menter for help.
Bristol based Mace & Menter was launched in 2013. The service design and UX specialist focuses on helping clients in the public and third sectors – working with organisations including the Cabinet Office, DCMS, Policy Lab and Scope to help improve the way people experience their services. The firm has also repeatedly been contracted by healthcare providers such as the NHS and NHS Digital to help improve the way patients experience their services.
Selected on the basis of their experience in co-design across the health space, Mace & Menter is now working collaboratively with Breast Cancer Now to gather insight from across the organisation to conduct an operational review of support services, highlighting gaps, pain points and opportunities. The firm will now collaborate with staff across the organisation to review service delivery and co-design a new model for future support service delivery.
Cath Biddle, associate director of digital at Breast Cancer Now, said, “We chose to work with Mace & Menter because of their human-centred approach across health and care combined with their experience of working on large-scale projects with multiple stakeholders. The collaborative approach they proposed is a great fit for us at Breast Cancer Now.”
Looking ahead, Mace & Menter’s work will enable Breast Cancer Now to understand exactly what people need so that strategic technology decisions can be informed by evidence. This will see the professionals support Breast Cancer Now with creating a shared vision for needs-based transformation so that can increase reach and impact of services.
Sam Menter, managing director at Mace & Menter, added, "Third sector health and care organisations provide a vital lifeline to many people. To meet rising demand, services need to be scaled but they are often supported by systems, technology and processes that have been in place for some time and are less than optimal. Our role is to bring the human perspective to transformation – it’s about much more than technology. We bring an outside-in perspective, engage stakeholders from the frontline to the back office, and co-design service transformation around delivering better human experiences."
