An Update from Maggie’s

Our founder Maggie Keswick Jencks said that ‘above all what matters is not to lose the joy of living in the fear of dying’, while living with advanced cancer.

She had a vision for a different type of cancer care. After she died in 1995, that vision became a reality when the first Maggie’s cancer support centre opened in Edinburgh the following year.

With her ideas at the heart of everything we do, the support we provide was considered groundbreaking 30 years ago, and our network of 27 centres across the UK continue to lead the way in pioneering cancer care.

Every year we give hundreds of thousands of people the support they need to cope with the huge, life-changing and overwhelming challenges and emotions that come with cancer. Our support is free and available for both for the person with a diagnosis as well as their family and friends.

Those people have that support because of players of Postcode Lottery,

One centre visitor summed it up perfectly when he said that while cancer pulled him apart, Maggie’s put him back together again. Again, that’s down to the generosity of players.

As the number of cancer diagnoses rises, the need for our support also rises.

In 2025 we supported 338,928 visits† - a 4% increase on 2024 and our highest number on record. In total, we supported 1 in 7 new cancer diagnoses across England, Scotland and Wales. Demand for our prostate cancer support rose by 50% in one year.

We can meet this demand because of the incredible support of players of Postcode Lottery.

Since Maggie’s and Postcode Lottery started working in partnership in 2008, we have received more than £30 Million thanks to players. We also received an extra £1 Million to help us build a new centre in Cardiff.

Our vision is to eventually have 60 Maggie’s centres across the UK - one at every major NHS cancer centre. Postcode Lottery’s unrestricted funding means we can use the funding where it is needed most.

And while such generosity is vital in allowing us to support people with cancer, I also hugely value our partnership. We feel like family and as so, while we have our own plans and ambitions we are ultimately here for each other.

The communities of Maggie’s, Postcode Lottery and the other charities supported by players all help and share and learn from each other so that we can all be more than the sum of our own parts.

It is a collaboration of empowerment and betterment which reflects how we tailor our support in our centres. We listen to what people really need and then we give them the tools that have the best chance of working for them. Postcode Lottery hears who we are as an organisation, what our ambitions are and what we are looking to achieve and responds by giving us they support we need to make it happen.

In response we are of course incredibly grateful, but I hope we also contribute in our own way to the Postcode Lottery family.

To find out more about Maggie’s support or to find your nearest centre please visit Our centres | Maggie's.

†visits refers to support facilitated by our programme staff and includes face to face; on the phone and online.