The Tammy Prescott Award recognises and rewards research that puts people with lived experience at the heart of their work.
About the Tammy Prescott award
The Marie Curie Patient and Public Involvement Award is in memory of Tammy Prescott who died in May 2023. Tammy made major contributions to Marie Curie’s Dying in Poverty campaign. She for instance, delivered a petition with over 166,000 signatures to Downing Street and met with Sir Keir Starmer calling for improved financial support for people with a terminal illness.
Despite undergoing intensive treatment at the time, she continued to use her voice to provide lived experience insights to drive forward engagement with the campaign from both the public and politicians. Marie Curie is immensely grateful to Tammy and her family for all of their involvement and support in the campaign.
This year's winner
Project title: The Feasibility and Acceptability of ExerciseGuide UK: A Web-Based Platform for Personalised Physical Activity Programs and Educational Resources for Individuals Living with and Beyond Lung Cancer. A Mixed Methods Thesis
Project lead: Jordan Curry, Hull York Medical School
Funder for project: Yorkshire Cancer Research
Panel decision: The panel, formed of individuals with lived experience from our Marie Curie's Research Voices Group, selected Jordan Curry and his project as the winner of this year's Tammy Prescott Patient and Public Involvement Award. The panel reasoned that he had demonstrated a strong commitment to engaging in a meaningful way with his patient and public involvement group and showed resilience. Jordan supported a vulnerable group of cancer patients throughout the project and unfortunately had to handle the death of three members of his group during the project. The panel said that the nomination had highlighted the PPI member's contribution to the project well and it was a great exemplar, especially from an early career researcher, and embodied the true essence of involving induvial with lived experience in research.
Runner ups:
Project title: Use of "close-to-practice" methodologies to explain and change impact of interpersonal relationships in quality improvement
Project lead: Sarah Yardley, Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Department, University College London
Funder of project: The Health Improvement Studies Institute (THIS), Cambridge
Project title: How do people with multiple long-term conditions use and experience healthcare in the last year of life?
Project lead: Sarah Bowers, University of St Andrews
Funder for project: The Wellcome Trust
How to make a nomination for this award
Nominations for this award are now closed. We will host the presentation of prizes on Friday 9 February at 12.30pm at the Marie Curie Research Conference.
Nominations for this award are flexible, you can nominate yourself, the project lead, the research group (which you may be a part of), or PPI member(s) for this award. Nominations can include projects not funded by Marie Curie but must be relevant to palliative or end of life care.
The judging panel for this award will include members of our Marie Curie Research Voices Group who will be looking at the UK Standards for Public Involvement when assessing nominations. The panel will be looking for nominations that can demonstrate specific impact that the involvement of people with lived experience had on the project. They would also be keen to see examples of engagement with people with lived experience in all aspects of the project. For example, from the development of the research question right through to the sharing of the findings.
The next round of nominations for this award will open in October 2024, ahead of the Marie Curie Research Conference in February 2025.
The award
The award winner will be announced as part of the Marie Curie Research Conference during the session taking place on Friday 9 February 2024. The winning summary will be uploaded to the conference platform for attendees to read and leave comments. The winner of this prize will be awarded £1,000 to go towards further PPI activities or on professional or personal development. For example, a training course or another dissemination event.
