FLASHBACK to September 2019: Steve Morgan, chairman of the Steve Morgan Foundation, and guests at the starts of the works
A NEW centre that supports people living with cancer is set to start helping its first patients from early spring.
National charity Maggies, which has 24 centres all over the country, is putting the finishing touches to its new Maggie’s Merseyside centre, being built within the grounds of Clatterbridge Health Park for people across Wirral, Merseyside, Cheshire and North Wales.
The Steve Morgan Foundation is building the centre – and hope to begin work next year on another centre at the Royal Liverpool Hospital – at a cost of more than £5m.
Kathy Wright, centre head of Maggie’s Merseyside, said: “Building work has continued to develop well despite the challenges of the current pandemic.
“The new centre is much bigger than the current facility so will enable us to provide much more support to more people.
“It will be wonderful to have a permanent centre here on the Wirral.”
All Maggie’s centres are based alongside NHS hospitals and provide free support without the need for an appointment or a referral.
The existing building at Clatterbridge was built in 2014 for 3,000 visits a year but has been attracting more than 17,000 as demand has soared.
Kathy said: “The new centre will provide more space, which means our staff will be able to deliver more of core programme, courses and support groups.
“There are 18,000 new cancer diagnoses every year in Merseyside and Cheshire alone. Maggie’s Merseyside is hoping to be everyone’s home of cancer care across Wirral, Merseyside, Cheshire and North Wales, for people living with and beyond cancer, along with their friends and families.”
Kathy said the support of the Steve Morgan Foundation has been critical.
“Our partnership with the Steve Morgan Foundation is hugely important,” she said. “We are also incredibly grateful for the £3m from the Community Match Challenge Fund as this has allowed us to ensure people across England have the psychological support, they need now more than ever.”
Steve Morgan CBE, chairman of the Steve Morgan Foundation, said: “I’m really excited by the opening of the new centre and our involvement goes far beyond funding. We’ve also been responsible for the planning, design and construction, which is very unusual for a Foundation.”
- The Steve Morgan Foundation is a long-term supporter of Maggie’s having committed more than £8m to the charity, including £3m in 2020 from the Community Match Challenge Fund alongside the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS)
