For people living with cancer, maintaining a healthy, nutritionally balanced diet can be challenging. Cancer treatment may alter taste or appetite, can make shopping and cooking feel overwhelming, and some cancer types bring additional challenges such as difficulty swallowing or digesting food.

These were some of the challenges being reported by the team at Maggie’s when the charity made the decision to pilot a monthly Nutrition Workshop with The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust’s Dietetic Department to offer practical, evidence-based support. Launched in 2020, the workshops quickly demonstrated their value – helping people better understand the nutritional impact of cancer and equipping them with realistic strategies to manage day-to-day eating. Importantly, the pilot also reduced pressure on NHS services, cutting waiting times for dietetic appointments.

Dame Laura Lee DBE, Chief Executive at Maggie’s, said:

“Cancer treatments can impact appetite, tastes and nutritional needs and many people worry about what they should and shouldn’t be eating during treatment and beyond.

Group nutritional workshops at Maggie’s help people with cancer identify fact from fiction, encouraging them to follow a healthy, balanced diet but ultimately empowering them to make the best decisions for their individual needs. This approach is a win-win: people with cancer get timely, trusted nutrition support, which is vital, while the NHS benefits from reduced waiting lists.”

Now, with plans to introduce the scheme across Maggie’s 27 centres in the UK, BAPEN was keen to explore what made this initiative so successful and what others can learn from its impact.

What are the Nutrition Workshops?

Maggie’s monthly group sessions are open to anyone living with cancer, or relatives supporting someone with cancer. Held around the kitchen table at Maggie’s centres, the workshops blend practical guidance with live recipe demonstrations and tasters, run by a cancer specialist dietitian.

The content is practical, interactive, and tailored to common concerns people face during cancer treatment. Sessions typically include key recommendations for eating well with and beyond cancer, managing barriers to eating, food fortification advice and discussing cancer nutrition myths. Seasonal recipes help bring the advice to life, and attendees are encouraged to ask questions, share experiences, and seek guidance from an oncology dietitian.

What were the key outcomes from the 2020 pilot?

The pilot delivered several clear and meaningful benefits for both patients and the dietetics team at The Royal Marsden.

People attending the workshops reported feeling better equipped to navigate dietary challenges that come with cancer and valued having access to reliable advice and guidance. The dietitian leading the sessions can also signpost to further accurate and up-to-date information, meaning people rely less on potentially misleading sources. Feedback also highlighted the social and emotional benefits from the peer-based group, with people able to come together round the kitchen table with those in a similar situation to themselves.

The pilot also delivered measurable service improvements. Since the introduction of the workshops, waiting times for the general outpatient dietetic clinic at The Royal Marsden have reduced by 24%, even as referral numbers have risen. By offering a robust intervention for people at medium risk of malnutrition, the workshops free up clinic appointments for those with more complex needs, helping the dietetics team provide timely, targeted support.

What challenges did Maggie’s encounter during the pilot, and how did they overcome them?

Following the success of The Royal Marsden pilot, the Nutrition Workshops are now set to be rolled out across all 27 Maggie’s centres in the UK. While the team encountered a few challenges during the initial pilot, they also identified simple, effective solutions that other charities may find helpful.

One of the main considerations was the diversity of attendees – people often arrived with different diagnoses, treatment stages, and nutritional needs, making it difficult to tailor content in advance. The Maggie’s team approached this by developing a questionnaire shared before the session, that gathers more information on an attendee’s diagnosis and where they are on their treatment pathway.

The team also noted how important promotion is to ensure strong attendance figures at the sessions, and they implemented nurse training and increased awareness through flyers and magazine articles.

Finally, because Maggie’s is independent of the hospital, dietitians initially had no access to clinical records, meaning the multidisciplinary team couldn’t see who had attended the workshops or what had been covered. This was solved by manually asking attendees if they were happy giving their name and hospital number so a note can be added to their electronic medical records.

Overall, this pilot has been an important milestone for both people living with cancer and those working in specialist oncology dietetics. It has shown how practical, community‑based support can make a real difference to patient experience and NHS capacity. With a national expansion on the horizon, BAPEN is delighted that thousands more people will soon be able to benefit from the same expert-led support.

More information about Maggie’s Nutrition Workshop scheme can be found here.

In addition to nutritional advice and workshops, Maggie’s provides a range of practical and emotional support to anyone diagnosed with cancer, as well as their family and friends. No appointment or referral is needed, and all Maggie’s support is free. People can simply drop in to one of the 27 centres around to the UK and speak to Maggie’s expert staff, all of whom are specially trained in supporting people impacted by cancer. To find out more, visit https://www.maggies.org/.