Cancer charity's elf drive

Staff at the Robin Park Boots store donned their colourful outfits and took part in a variety of fund-raising activities as part of a region-wide and week-long effort by the retail chain to raise funds for Macmillan Cancer Support.

Boots for the last four years have been working in partnership with Macmillan to fund-raise and raise awareness.

Over the course of the last 12 months Boots stores across the country have been holding events, and in North West England we have been no different.

For a week, colleagues from outlets participated in the Manchester Walk of Care, during which colleagues walked, ran, cycled, bounced and skipped from one Boots store to the next, handing over their Macmillan Gnome as the relay baton.

The relay covered a total of 225 outlets, each stage culminating with events held across each store. Boots Wigan Robin Park were no different and they have been working locally with the Macmillan team at the Cancer Care Centre in Wigan Infirmary to help raise awareness of services available to people in our local community as well as working to provide “Look Good, Feel Better sessions” for patients undergoing treatment

As part of their fund-raising week, Boots West Manchester walked from Lymm, Cheshire to Newton-le-Willows across Wigan and through Bolton, finishing at Middlebrook with events such as prize draws, cake sales in each store. Boots Robin Park were also seen “splatting the boss” for store team donations.

While supporting with fund-raising is key raising awareness within the region is also fundamental for the Boots Macmillan partnership. Across the region the company has Boots Macmillan Information Pharmacists and Boots Macmillan Beauty Advisors have received extra training to support patients to look good and feel better at all stages of their treatment.

In Greater Manchester alone there are 95,000 people living with cancer and sadly 41 more people are diagnosed each day. Each year 7,600 people in the area die from cancer.

A Boots spokesman said: “Cancer is often the toughest fight many people will face. Boots UK and Macmillan Cancer Support are working together to ensure everyone affected by cancer, wherever they are in the UK, has access through Boots to the best cancer information and support in their local community.

Boots have introduced Macmillan Information Training programmes for their pharmacists and No7 consultants.