Mike Ryan

As a person with lived experience in cancer across two continents and health systems, Mike Ryan has seen first-hand the good and the bad of healthcare provision, with some stories to tell.

Mike has worked in multiple sectors of the NHS for over twenty years and is proudly Head of Service for the East Midlands Cancer Alliance (EMCA) since 2020.  Having spent most of his career not working in cancer services, Mike joined EMCA as one of the largest cancer alliances nationally covering a population of 5.2million spanning five integrated care systems and eight acute Trusts.  With partners and colleagues across primary and secondary care, voluntary services and charity partners, Mike has enabled collaboration toward stability and improvement across tumour sites and services. He is the Chairman of the East Midlands Radiotherapy Network, member of a number of Boards and national advisory committees, and a qualified business excellence assessor.

With a combination of compassionate and transformational leadership styles, Mike connects people, teams and pathways with a mindset of helping make the right thing for patients the easiest thing for clinicians.  He is entrepreneurial in spirit, skilled in hospital flow and process flow, and is inspired by people and colleagues each day.

Mike recognises the opportunity and challenge at our collective door and that in order to deliver the NHS long-term plan and to improve patient outcomes and increase survivorship, at pace more must be done to build appropriate levels of capacity and capability through investment in people, processes and equipment nationally. This includes redesigning services to reflect what matters to patients and ensuring a balanced investment profile ranging from research and early detection genomics to treatment capacity and psychosocial care. Prevention, earlier and faster diagnosis initiatives remain key objectives, and ensuring appropriate and equitable levels of capacity are imperatives.

Statistically, 50% of people over the age of 50 will be diagnosed cancer in their lives. Cancer is a major event in one’s life and thus is personal to us all.