Over my career so far, I’ve enjoyed working across a range of data scenarios, from randomised trials with their own data capture to national audit using routinely-collected data. It is this latter experience which has captured my interest, highlighting the value of real-world data for understanding clinical practice with aims of improving treatment access and outcomes for patients.
Outside of work I enjoy being in the outdoors, whether it’s in the garden or out for walks with the dog. I also love music, reading and a good tv series.
Melissa Gannon
Senior Health Data Analyst
Melissa is a medical statistician by training, with more than a decade of experience in health/cancer data analysis and research, having started off on randomised controlled trials and subsequently moving to epidemiology and national audit. Over this time she has worked with a wide range of stakeholders across academia, healthcare and charity, and disseminated findings from this work through national reports, publications and presentations.
She joins HDI from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), where she was a Research Fellow in Clinical Epidemiology working on national cancer audit. She worked on the National Audit of Breast Cancer in Older Patients (NABCOP), up to its closure in 2022, and then on the set-up of the two new National Audits of Primary and Metastatic Breast Cancer covering all people diagnosed with breast cancer in England and Wales. Whilst at LSHTM Melissa also completed a PhD, publishing work looking at using routinely-collected national healthcare data to understand the utilisation of oncological treatments among older women with breast cancer. Within this she looked in-depth at treatment data captured within the Systemic Anti-Cancer Therapy (SACT) dataset and the Primary Care Prescription Database (PCPD), as well as understanding treatment safety based on hospital admissions data, for people with breast cancer in England. She also has experience of using the Rapid Cancer Registration Dataset (RCRD) within England, for national audit, with published work looking at changes in radiotherapy treatment prescribing over COVID-19.
Melissa brings to HDI an extensive knowledge of the routinely-collected national cancer, and wider healthcare, data in both England and Wales, along with an understanding of it’s capabilities for providing insight into healthcare practice and associated outcomes.
Education and presentations:
2019-24: London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
– PhD “Use of real world data to generate evidence on the effectiveness of oncological treatment provision in older/underrepresented populations of women diagnosed with breast cancer.”
2019-20: University of London
– Post Graduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching (PGCiLT; Distinction)
2009-10: University of Leicester
– MSc Medical Statistics (Merit)
2006-09: University of Leeds
– BSc Mathematics and Statistics (First class honours)
Projects:
Endometrial Cancer Audit Pilot (ECAP)
Linkedin profile