Macmillan Cancer Support Reviews 

My experience of Macmillan was June 2017 when my wife was diagnosed with a brain tumour . When we went for the meeting with the consultant for the diagnosis a person in scrubs was sitting in. I assumed she was an NHS nurse. Not so, she was Macmillan.
We then had the odd vist every few weeks. They did nothing but sit and talk, about nothing really. If I had known I would have dismissed them and dealt with things myself.
At the end of October my wife became very poorly and distressed and I called the out of hours local doctor who was excellent. She had a rampant urine infection and a serious case of thrush.
The next morning I called the local hospice, they arrived the same day and everything changed. They sent their doctor,nurses and carers and we both could not have been better looked after.
My main point is ,that to my mind ,we wasted five precious months of her life relying on an organisation not fit for purpose because we knew no better.
My advice to anyone who finds themselves in the same tragic position, boot the Macmillan person out of the meeting straightaway and phone your local hospice or Marie Curie. Do not expect anything from Macmillan. Do NOT donate to Macmillan despite their slick advertising campaign. Give the money to your local hospice, they are the experts.
After all this time I am still so angry that Macmillan are still getting away with it.
Note: My local hospice now say in their mission statement that they are nothing to do with Macmillan.
Richard

Had to obviously be held in a queue but the advisors were second to none. Having zeeo information from gp qnd kiterally nobody to turn to they answered every single query I had. I now feel much more informed. I really feel without Macmillan there woyld be nothing hardly in Uk as empathetic as they are. A big thank you.

Very, very bad service. My husband was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer which had metastasised in Sept last year and was put on palliative care. He died in November. In the 8 weeks he seen his MacMillan nurse 3 times. When she visited she was very stern, not at all empathetic, checked his meds and just wanted to go. I was appalled at the lack of care. When he died she didn’t even ring to send condolences or ask how am doing. Disappointed, what a let down for end of life people. I will never donate to such an uncaring organisation.

I am not surprised to come here to find the MacMillan reviews to be bad. I had thought it was just my experience, but it seems I am not alone.

I had a poor experience on my first call to MacMillan and a year later with a separate second topix I tried to get help using their online chat service.

Let’s just say there won’t be a third.

They say they are always there, they’re not - you are left with either a call back days/week later, asked to call back or a chat agent that knows very little of any use.
The advice when you do speak to someone is so generic and whilst I appreciate they can’t be an expert in everything nor can they give you help specific to you, but on the two occasions I have use MacMillan, they just had no knowledge whatsoever referring me instead to my local hospital!

I’d even called my local hospital MacMillan specialist nurse, left a voice message but didn’t receive a call back.

Whats worse is I had met the nurse in question on my original diagnosis and was told she would be there for me throughout the process. I’ve not heard a spot from her. I am left calling different people, even the hospital scheduler was more helpful.

Is MacMillan one of those charities you hear about that is really almost just a front for the directors and shareholders to get paid silly sums of money?

From my point of view Maxmillan appear to only be good at marketing.

My husband was diagnosed with mesothelioma at St Peter’s hospital in Chertsey. The McMillan nurses were not helpful or supportive at all during his illness, on his last admission to hospital when he was told there was nothing else that could be done , the McMillan nurse stood at the feet of his bed while the oncologist delivered the news, she didn’t utter a word and left, not confort nothing at all, shocking. Will never ever give gem any money. In contrast Thames hospice nurses supported my husband and myself at all times, they are truly angels.

I have had an email from mcmillan who looked into my previous poor review and the reasons why. They agreed my review was warranted. They are offering the staff member training and I've had an apology.

Rang today for advice for the same thing and the support worker today was amazing. As we're the first 2.

She gave me amazing support, listened, empathised, let me know if an idea I had would be worth it by talking it through. Had immense patience and a good understanding of the advice I needed.
She empowered me, made me feel I was worth it.
Thank you so much Polly.

I visited the NEC yesterday (24/03/24)
It was a special treat for my partner and I after I’d had chemo and we are on a 6 year Cancer roller coaster battle to stay alive.

But to my disgust and to our shock at the top of the steps was a large green MacMillan stand with a dark haired woman in a sexual stance with one arm raised and the other on her hips and she shouted at us IM HERE !!!!! mainly aimed at my partner …..

I was disgusted and shocked to think a company such as MacMillan would resort to and endorse this behaviour!!!!

I do realise that as a charity you need to source funds.
But I was shocked and disgusted to see Macmillan adopt this behaviour to do so.
Consequently I was very upset and my parter alarmed.
Surely MacMillan would be best sticking to acting in the caring and professional way I’ve always know them to be.

Regards
Karen Phillips

This company would make you more sick than cancer would. Avoid, avoid, totally avoid.

I find the whole advertising campaign very misleading as in 90% of cases they are purely advisory and don’t do much practical nursing and caring for the dying.
Although they seem like lovely people they offered very little in the way of help when my dad was dying of cancer. The community nurses were the ones that delivered the care. These were not MacMillan

The advert for them says it all! They just hand out tissues and are always trying to hug you and invade your space. I lost my husband last year to cancer and when I called them for assistance the just gave out numbers to ring. Unfortunately a month after He passed I was diagnosed with cancer and after lots of time wasting and loads of filler appointments. When I finally saw an oncologist in the December (6 months after diagnosis) I noted that there was a Macmillan Nurse and I asked for her to be removed as I had too many bad experiences with them prior to that time. Everytime I see expensive adverts for the charity It makes me mad as they are totally pointless. My daughter called them to find about counselling which is something they seem to go on about but was just given a phone number and told that there was at least a 6 month waiting list. More money should be put into local hospices which actually act and make you feel important. My local hospice sent nurses when I needed them, organised prescriptions and rang me fortnightly to check if I needed anything. The fact that charitable people give them money makes me angry beyond belief and I seriously think they need to be investigated.

Cruel. I have already left negative feedback about this mob. I want nothing from them and they just cold call a harass me. Macmillan please go away I don't want your help and I don't want you harassing me
Macmillan have made contact on here it's thier usual lip service. I won't be calling them again. I want nothing from this horrible cruel organisation. Be careful with them.

Now been couple of weeks since i wrote this and emailed them as well and absolutely no responce from them
So disappointing

Initially very good treatment at Huntley Street uclh but after being moved from there to Westmoreland street at covid lock down the service went down hill and support from macmillan no help at all and no listening to concern and problems with macmillan nurse so disappointed

Genuinely some of the most unsupportive and uncaring ‘nurses’ I’ve even seen.
Utterly shocking how unsupportive macmillan is, given the PR and coffee mornings etc. I’m honestly dumbfounded at the letter I’ve received a couple of weeks ago about my care. Absolutely disgraceful service. Never in a million years thought I’d have to say this about MacMillan.

Update: their phone lines are just as bad. Decided to be more positive and give them another go and I was put on hold about 8 times this weekend just asking for the most basic support. They really need a massive reset, it’s sadly a mess

Very poor support for my Mum who died of cancer a week ago. When she was first diagnosed with cancer 4 months ago, the support was there - Mum had a couple of appointments with Macmillan, whilst receiving two rounds of chemo. Then after that, Mum entered palliative care in hospital. Mum was visited by a Macmillan nurse only 3 times - in 6 weeks. The visits were extremely brief - sad to say rather pointless.
My Mum had not been told by any nurse/doctor/consultant that she was no longer doing well on treatment and was now dying - woeful practice, NHS! So I asked a Macmillan nurse if they would speak with Mum & explain she was no longer receiving treatment for cancer, her condition was terminal and she had entered end-of-life care. I was appalled at how the Macmillan nurse handled the talk with Mum - a professionally trained cancer nurse and yet she couldn’t explain clearly to my Mum. I had to have the talk with my Mum myself. At no time did Macmillan nurses ask me or other family members, if we needed any support. So all-in-all, sadly a very poor experience. Not a charity I feel confident to support in the future.

If I could leave no stars I would. They try come in at end end and then want a hand out. I lost both parents exactly a month apart for cancer or related issues in 2022. No contact after. St lukes was fantastic for my mum. Macmillan are a money grabbing organisation.

Our mother recently passed away after battling stage 4 metastatic breast cancer for 5 years. During that time we contacted MacMillan numerous times and left our details asking for some help and support for us and our mum - not once did they ever reply to us. When mum finally passed away in hospital they were conspicuous by their absence. Despite being promised she was high priority the MacMillan nurse never showed up until 1hour before mum died. Don’t donate to this appalling and uncaring charity, they don’t deserve a penny.

NHS at it's very worst. Please do not fund these silent Killers. My 91 year old father is bleeding to death through his catheter (terminal bladder cancer) and unfortunately knows it. They have not made contact once! they should be struck off or just plain STRUCK!

Five times we called McMillan Nurses, just for support or just what/how to deal with my Moms situation, no call back, no visit, just left alone.!!

I am sure that there will be many people who may have good experiences of Macmillan nurses ,I sadly did not. My mother was diagnosed with liver cancer in June 2022 she was told that a Mac nurse would be assigned to her and eventually she was visited by one of the nurses and she did sort out the paperwork for medication at home and what my mother wanted for end of life treatment and said that she would be in contact with the family regularly both visiting and phone calls and if we wanted anything she gave us the contact number to get hold of her. My mother did not receive many visits even when I requested them because neither my mother, father or myself knew what was normal or abnormal for the disease so needed to know if what my mum was experiencing was normal. Getting in contact had to be through a receptionist so you may be a long time for a response, mum had three different Mac nurses the first was quite helpful, the second treated us as though we were a nuisance and was quite rude to mum and dad and the third tried to be helpful but only from 8 till 4 Monday to Friday if you were lucky. The last two weeks of mum's life were full of pain and suffering and if it had not been for one great district nurse who was there at the time mum needed help the most and arranged for mum to go into a hospice for the last four days of her life she would have died without help. What people believe a Macmillan nurse does is influenced by adverts which I believe misinform you. They may have been nurses before Macmillan but are really just form fillers and organisers who want the regular hours of 8 till 4 Mon to Fri and it will depend on the individual as to the quality of assistance you receive. I was extremely disappointed with Macmillan and would never donate to them.

My partner of 26 years died in October from stage 4 lung cancer. Unfortunately, he spent most of his final weeks in hospital. It was not the end of life care we hoped for, my partner was very unhappy with his care. Macmillan did get involved, their department was attached to the Respiratory ward. They offered very little support, were most definitely not at all helpful or present. I have had no contact with them since my partner passed away. Not even their condolences or a courtesy phone call. I have heard similar experiences from other people with one exception in London. I did consider complaining but thought I would simply get a half hearted apology and excuses so didn't bother.