5 minutes with… Bright Red Charity

29 October 2026 — lia-rogers

In today’s blog, we spend 5 minutes with a small charity supporting people affected by blood cancer in the UK. Bright Red also funds new research projects to improve blood cancer treatments and quality of life for patients.

Tell us about your organisation…

Marrow Stem Cell Transplantation 2000 was relaunched as Bright Red Charity in 2010. MSCT 2000 was originally set up by Professor Proctor at the RVI initially to improve care for patients with blood cancer through research. The vision was to build on the £4million raised and expand to include improving patient care and education as well as research.

We are as small charity based in Cramlington, but our home address is allocated to ward 33 at the Freeman, a ward dedicated to treating people with blood cancer through chemotherapy and stem cell transplantation. 

What services do you offer people living with or affected by cancer?

Bright Red charity supports mainly anyone over the age of 18 who are under the care of a Haematologist anywhere in the North of England. We have also supported children of patients who are struggling with their parent/grandparent diagnosis, through a qualified experienced play therapist.

We offer patients a multitude of services such as auricular acupuncture, massage to support with side effects of their treatments, psychological support, one off funded grant, toiletry bags, water bottles etc. we have revamped cubicles at the Freeman to make the patients stay more comfortable whilst in isolation with wall art, large flat screen tv’s, sofa beds for relatives to stay overnight.

We have also supported patients through funding research projects to improve treatments and their quality of life.

A fantastic service funded by Bright Red is in providing a Clinical Specialist Nurse who supports individuals depending on their diagnosis with up-to-date knowledge and one to one support.

What’s the most rewarding thing about the work you do?

Working for Bright Red is an absolute delight and privilege. I used to be the ward manager at the Freeman on the blood cancer ward, so I have first hand experience of witnessing what patients endured and how grateful they were from the support of the charity.

Can you tell us about your team?

We are a small team of 3 people consisting of Lisa, the CEO, Ashleigh covering accounts and supportive therapies and myself, Kathryn, fund raiser and events co-ordinator.

What are the values of your organisation and can you describe your organisation in 3 words?

Bright Reds values are always to put the support and needs of the patient first. We are always willing to go above and beyond to give a holistic supportive plan of action.

I would describe us as compassionate, supportive and dedicated. 

How are you funded and what can people do to support you if they would like to?

I would strongly encourage anyone to get involved with the charity. You can support as little or as much as you feel you are able to either by fund raising an event or by supporting at events.

We are funded by supporters of the charity from their own organised events and donations as well as organised events we have arranged ourselves throughout the year,

If people would like to support the charity with their own event, then they can contact us at support@brightred.org.uk. We can offer support and advise on help organise their event or ideas on how to promote the event and we usually try and get to as many of the events as possible on the day to show support.