Leasedrive

Leasedrive re-signs Marie Curie Cancer Care
27 September 2011

Leasedrive, the largest independent privately-owned vehicle management group in the UK, has re-signed with Marie Curie Cancer Care, one of the UK’s leading charities, for another two years. The new contract covers 174 cars, mainly Peugeot and Renault, on contract hire or contract purchase plus the provision of short-term rental.

Commercial director, Roddy Graham, at Leasedrive said: “Marie Curie Cancer Care has been a customer of ours since 2005. It has also been one of our prime nominated charities and, given the fantastic work it undertakes by providing free nursing care for terminally-ill patients in their own homes, we have a special bond which goes beyond a normal commercial partnership.

“All charities are under tremendous pressure to maintain fundraising levels in the current climate, so we were conscious that the onus was on us to demonstrate that we were continuing to deliver real value through our totally-integrated online fleet management system, Drive:Manager and ensuring that Marie Curie had the highest level fleet consultancy input.”

Jeremy Sothcott, fleet manager at Marie Curie Cancer Care, commented: “When we went out to tender, we wanted to ensure that we were gaining maximum value from our fleet provider. After careful scrutiny, we were satisfied that this was indeed the case with Leasedrive from whom we will be receiving additional dashboard reporting.”

Marie Curie Cancer Care has been one of Leasedrive’s nominated charities since 2005. In that time, Leasedrive has raised over £45,000 including organising two bike rides – one between London and Paris in 2008 and one between its headquarters in Wokingham and Le Mans in 2010.

Notes to Editors:

Marie Curie Cancer Care
Marie Curie Cancer Care is one of the UK’s largest charities. Employing more than 2,700 nurses, doctors and other healthcare professionals, it provided care to more than 31,000 terminally ill patients in the community and in its nine hospices last year and is the largest provider of hospice beds outside the NHS.

Funding
Around 70 per cent of the charity’s income comes from the generous support of thousands of individuals, membership organisations and businesses, with the balance of its funds coming from the NHS.

Marie Curie Nurses
The charity is best known for its network of Marie Curie Nurses working in the community to provide end of life care, totally free for patients in their own homes.

Research
The charity provides core funding for three palliative care research facilities; the Marie Curie Palliative Care Research Unit at University College London, the Marie Curie Palliative Care Institute Liverpool and the Marie Curie Palliative Care Centre at the Wales Cancer Trials Unit (Cardiff University). The charity also supports palliative and end of life care research through its project grant funding streams, the Marie Curie Cancer Care Research Programme (administered by Cancer Research UK) and the Dimbleby Marie Curie Cancer Care Research Fund. It also funds seven fundamental scientific research groups which investigate the causes and treatments of cancer. This research was previously carried out at the Marie Curie Research Institute in Oxted, Surrey. The programmes are now located in universities around the country, and will receive funding from the charity until 2012.

Supporting the choice to die at home
Research shows around 65 per cent of people would like to die at home if they had a terminal illness, with a sizeable minority opting for hospice care. However, more than 50 per cent of cancer deaths still occur in hospital, the place people say they would least like to be. Since 2004 Marie Curie Cancer Care has been campaigning for more patients to be able to make the choice to be cared for and die at home.

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