The Service Pledge

Our Sponsors

Breast Cancer Now's Service Pledge 2025/2026 has been jointly sponsored by Eli Lilly and Company Limited, Novartis Pharmaceuticals UK Limited, and Roche Products Ltd. Lilly, Novartis and Roche have not had any control or involvement in this programme. 

How does the Service Pledge work?  

We help hospitals gather feedback from primary and metastatic breast cancer patients and hospital staff. Then, working together, we create a plan to act on that feedback and make change happen. We call that plan the 'Service Pledge'. 

It gives hospitals the chance to talk to patients and really understand their views. It gives healthcare professionals the chance to have their say on what they need to do the best job. And it means that people affected by breast cancer get the very best experience and care. 

Why is it important? 

We know that people’s experience of care can affect clinical outcomes. And that it’s about seeing the person behind the patient, not just the treatment plan. But we also understand hospitals are under increasing pressure, with ambitious targets and stretched resources making it harder than ever for staff to deliver the standard of care they want to provide.  

Through the Service Pledge, we’re helping to improve breast care services and create a culture of continual improvement across NHS teams. And by sharing best practice at a regional and national level, we’re helping deliver consistently high-quality breast care services for both patients and the healthcare professionals who support them. 

Our successes so far

We developed the Service Pledge in 2003. Since then, we’ve worked with over 150 breast services across the UK. It’s the only programme of its kind in the UK, and in the last 5 years alone, we’ve helped deliver over 400 improvements for people affected by breast cancer.  

To see how our Service Pledge partners are making change happen, you can explore the action-plans we’ve developed together below.  

The 6 stages of the Service Pledge 

1. We work with breast cancer services across a Cancer Alliance or region 

2. We use focus groups and surveys to find out what patients and staff think about their breast cancer service 

3. We gather, review, and analyse their feedback 

4. We discuss the feedback with patients and hospital staff 

5. Patients and hospital staff work together to suggest improvements for their breast cancer service 

6. We help hospitals put these improvements into practice, closing the feedback loop 

How do we involve patients? 

Patients are at the heart of the Service Pledge. We invite them to share their experiences of care at their hospital, and make suggestions for how to improve things. And we also recruit patient advocates to support patients throughout the process. These are trained volunteers with a personal experience of breast cancer. 

How do we work with healthcare professionals? 

No one knows services better than the healthcare professionals running them day in, day out. And every single one of them has experiences and expertise that can make a real difference to their breast care services.  

Through the Service Pledge, hospital staff can share their suggestions for change. And by connecting the dots between their feedback and that of patients, we give hospitals a clearer picture of how they can improve patient experience. 

How do we involve Cancer Alliances? 

Cancer Alliances exist to improve cancer outcomes and patient experience regionally. And the Service Pledge works closely with them to help improve breast care services based on what staff and patients are saying. 

The Service Pledge makes sure that learnings and best practice are shared across the region l, helping to create consistency in the standard of breast cancer care.

Read about the hospitals we’ve helped so far 

Thanks to the Service Pledge, change is happening right now in hospitals across the UK. Explore our impact below.