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.
The winner will be awarded £1,000 to go towards further PPI activities or personal development.
How to make a nomination for this award
Nominations for this award are now closed and open in Autumn 2026.
This year's winner
Project title: “I don’t want other people to write my history for me”: exploring what’s important to people living with HIV towards the end of their lives.
Nominees: The nominees included staff from Terrence Higgins Trust (THT), Marie Curie, and patient representatives who are living with HIV. The nomination was based on the team’s work, which was carried out co‑productively with people living with HIV in Brighton.
Panel decision: The panel was highly impressed by the project’s strong collaboration with Terrence Higgins Trust (THT), which meaningfully involved people living with HIV, both as research participants and members of the project steering group, alongside THT practitioners. This meant that people with lived experience shaped the research and its results at each stage.
The project also introduced a new methodology to Marie Curie. It’s a collaborative arts-based approach called No Barriers Here© that helps with end of life advanced care planning. It shows real promise as a valuable model for future research. The panel welcomed Marie Curie’s ongoing commitment to improving understanding and awareness of the experiences of people living with HIV in palliative and end of life care.
Runner ups:
Project title: The intervention to optimise palliative care for people with lived experience of homelessness (IMPROVE).
Project lead: Briony Hudson, Samantha Dorney Smith and Caroline Shulman
Funder of project: National Institute for Health and Care Research
Project title: Neighbourhood Networks: Building community-based palliative and grief literate peer support networks in Croydon.
Project lead: Briony Hudson
Funder of project: Marie Curie
Previous year's winner
Project title: The Victoria and Stuart Project: Co-designing a toolkit of approaches and resources for end-of-life care planning with people with learning disabilities within social care settings.
Project lead: The nomination is for members of a multi‑centre research team, as well as individuals with a learning disability, families, support workers, and professionals who were all part of the co‑design (All Together Group) and research advisory groups.
Funder for project: National Institute for Health and Care Research.
Panel decision: The panel felt that the team showed a strong commitment to involving patients and the public throughout the research.
People with learning disabilities were involved throughout the project, from introducing the research to being part of the advisory group, co-designing the resulting toolkits, and helping to share the work. Overall, the judging panel felt that their involvement was at the heart of this research. Their meaningful impact is clear from the toolkits which are now publicly available.
Runner up:
Project title: Exploring the idea of death cafés for people experiencing homelessness.
Project lead: Jodie Crooks (Marie Curie) and Gareth Davies (Pathway)
Funder of project: Marie Curie
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.
