Avon's passionate about raising funds and awareness to improve the quality of breast cancer care received by women in the UK. That's why we work closely with our charity partners and local hospitals, to help ensure that women and their families receive the best possible diagnosis, treatment and aftercare.
Meet our Macmillan Secondary Breast Cancer Nurse
In 2010, Avon donated £100,000 to Macmillan Cancer Support to fund for three years the vital work of Macmillan Secondary Breast Cancer Nurse, Ros Laverick. Based at the George Eliot hospital in Nuneaton, Ros provides expert emotional, practical, financial and medical support to over 200 women in Warwickshire who are diagnosed with secondary breast cancer each year.
As the hospital's only Secondary Breast Cancer Nurse Specialist, Ros helps to ensure that women are offered the best care and support to meet their needs. Using her 30 years of nursing experience, Ros helps women and their families to deal with the emotional stress of being diagnosed with the disease for the second time. Every day she provides easy to understand advice about treatment, as well as coordinating community nursing to give women with breast cancer a better quality of life.
Ros comments:
"I'm passionate about improving the lives of women with breast cancer. By offering education, advice and support, I can help empower women to take a positive, active role in their care so that it's not about breast cancer, it's about life."
Francesca Insole from Macmillan Cancer Support says:
"Breast cancer is an issue close to the hearts of women everywhere, and thanks to Avon we have been able to fund the post of Ros who is really supporting secondary breast cancer patients in Warwickshire. It is great to have Avon as one of our corporate partners and together are hoping to reach even more people affected by cancer."
To learn more about Macmillan Cancer Support and Macmillan Nurse Specialists, visit macmilan.org.uk
Avon is proud to support Northamptonshire based charity Crazy Hats Breast Cancer Appeal. Working together, we're able to provide practical advice and emotional support to women who are currently receiving or due to undertake treatment for breast cancer.
Each year, Avon sponsors Crazy Hats annul fundraising event, The Crazy Hats Walk, which attracts nearly 3,000 walkers from across the county. Donning an array of wacky and wonderful hats, local people join the walk to raise money for the charity's projects with hospitals in Kettering, Northampton and Leicester. The walk forms the UK leg of Avon's global fundraising programme, The Avon Walk Around the World for Breast Cancer,a worldwide series of events designed to raise funds for and awareness of the breast cancer cause.
Crazy Hats founder Glennis Hooper:
"Over the past four years the support that Avon has provided to Crazy Hats has been tremendous and has helped us to make a real difference to women experiencing breast cancer in Northamptonshire. Thanks to Avon, last year we were able to buy a brand new van to enable us to visit and help more women across the county. This year, Avon's generous donation has helped us to create The Avon Haven at our offices - a beautiful and comfortable outlet for breast cancer patients and their families to receive emotional and practical support when they need it most, away from the hospital environment."
Hospital donations
Avon's passionate about making a real and direct difference to the lives of women and their families affected by breast cancer. That's why, each year, we donate much needed, cutting edge breast cancer equipment to local hospitals. So far in 2011, Avon has already made donations to Northampton General Hospital and Kettering General Hospital so that women from across the county receive enhanced breast cancer treatment.
Northampton General hospital
Thanks to a donation of £5,500 from Avon, a top-of-the range IDI Mammo Documentation Centre has been installed at the hospital to help improve early detection of breast cancer in local women. With the new equipment, the breast unit now becomes one of the first treatment centres in the Midlands to provide care using the innovative IDI-Mammo technology. The state of the art equipment enables the radiologist to conduct a more targeted ultra-sound examination by instantly viewing digital images taken during the patient's mammogram. It also allows women to view the high quality images as their specialist talks through their breast assessment, helping to ensure women are better informed about their condition.
Kettering General Hospital
Avon joined forces with the local charity Crazy Hats and the Kettering & District Charitable Medical Trust to donate over £62,000 to the hospital's breast surgery theatre. Thanks to the donation, a top-of-the range Faxitron machine has been installed. The state of the art equipment enables surgeons to analyse breast tissue specimens instantly in the operating theatre whilst also sending digital imagery of the sample to the radiologist for immediate viewing. This improved, quicker process reduces the length of time women undergoing surgery are under placed under anaesthetic, meaning there is less risk of complications during the operation.
