Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission launches new Academy platform and workshop series by and for NHS professionals to share excellence and advance brain tumour treatment and care

The Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission (TJBCM) is proud to launch the Tessa Jowell Academy, a new free learning platform connecting the 28 NHS brain tumour centres which have participated in the Tessa Jowell (TJ) Centre of Excellence designation initiative. The Tessa Jowell Academy, open to all academic and NHS professionals affiliated with these NHS brain tumour centres, is dedicated to sharing excellence in research, treatment and care.

Hosted on an online interactive platform, the Academy has been co-designed by over 30 NHS clinicians, nurses and allied health professionals, to support and enable NHS staff to provide the best possible treatment and care for their patients. Members will have access to a wealth of resources and services including online courses and workshops, a bespoke clinical trial finder and exciting networking opportunities.

Professor Katie Bushby, TJ Designation and Academy Lead said:

“The Academy is truly a clinician-led effort, with every piece of content designed based on the needs expressed by NHS health care professionals during the designation exercise and by the Academy faculty. Through the designation process, expertise and innovation were found all along the patient pathway, but we found they were often siloed within disciplines or centres. It is hoped that with the support of the Academy, centres will share their knowledge and expertise so that more centres in the future will qualify for Centre of Excellence status.”

The designation exercise revealed exciting pockets of excellence, as well as areas that are challenging to address and these challenges were often experienced by all NHS centres. Academy content has been designed specifically to make excellence available to all and to address the areas where centres would like to receive more support.

Ms Jess Mills, TJBCM Co-Founder said:

“It is with immeasurable pride that today we are launching the Tessa Jowell Academy. Our ambition at the TJBCM is to take the UK from having some of the poorest outcomes in brain cancer to being a global leader in the treatment and care of brain cancer.

My mum’s final wish was that every patient should be able to receive the latest and greatest treatment and care in their local hospital, no matter where they lived, and the Tessa Jowell Academy is going to be a landmark moment of joining all centres across the country to share excellence. In time this will raise all boats, providing the best possible support to all NHS staff involved in caring for patients with brain tumours every step of the way.”

The Academy will be hosting a welcome event for members online on the 24^th February 5.30-6.30 PM, which will kick off the Academy’s flagship webinar series (sign up via the Academy platform). The TJBCM team is available for queries about the Academy and to join MDT meetings to introduce the platform and its features.

On the platform, members will be able to:

• Join monthly sessions from the flagship webinar series starting March 2022
• Check the bespoke clinical trial finder to find the latest novel drug trials recruiting patients nationally
• Access business cases examples for anonymised cases from colleagues across the UK that have expanded their neuro-oncology team
• Use the peer-to-peer learning feature to be matched with a colleague from another centre to benefit from their expertise on any brain tumour topic and share learnings (e.g. setting up a prehabilitation service, developing a biobanking pathway or how to set up a auditing programme)
• Join a managed email group for a specific speciality or area of interest
• Access a comprehensive list of the services and resources offered by charities to better signpost patients and their families

We thank our partner charities without whom the platform wouldn’t be possible (ACT for Cancer, Brainstrust, The Brain Tumour Charity, Brain Tumour Research, Brain Tumour Support, Cancer Research UK, The Minderoo Foundation, Tessa Jowell Foundation and NCRI).