Tim's Story

Over 35 years a charity is sure to see some changes – and Tim Cooper has seen them all at Lingen Davies!

To celebrate 45 years since the launch of the Lingen Davies Cancer Fund, the charity’s long-supporting Chairman who has dedicated 35 years to ensure people affected by cancer across Shropshire, Telford & Wrekin, and Mid Wales are supported, shared his story.

When leaving school Tim turned down the option of becoming a banker and instead thought radiotherapy looked more interesting. He trained in Birmingham and started his career in Wolverhampton before moving to Shrewsbury – but not without a hiccup.

Tim bought a house in Cannock in 1989 and days after moving in, had an interview to head up radiotherapy services at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital – when offered the job at the interview, he was told he had to live in Shropshire as the service was funded by public subscription…

So as soon as he got home, Tim had to ask his wife to stop unpacking and start looking at houses in Shropshire!

Tim Cooper | Lingen Davies Supporter

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Becoming Proactive in Fundraising

Tim’s first role with Lingen Davies encompassed growing the relationship with the Cobalt Unit Trust Fund and the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital as part of the original support group for the Lingen Davies Trustees.

He supported the charity when founder Frank Davies was still a Trustee and the team met in the waiting room of the Cobalt Unit.

“For the first 20 years we were very passive, essentially Lingen Davies coasted on the success of Bernard Lingen and Frank Davies’s legacy of raising £1.25million in 18 months,” he said. “Lots of people put legacies in their Will and donations just kept coming in.”

“At the time I was still treating people on machines that are now in museums in London as examples of the history of radiotherapy – we lived on legacies and didn’t really do any real fundraising.”

Tim, who read the eulogy at the funeral of Frank Davies, then began to work alongside Roy Allan, who became Chair of Trustees.

“There was a need for a new chemotherapy centre so Lingen Davies and Macmillan both fundraised and collected £3.2million – this appeal led to the appointment of Eryl Williams as Fundraising Manager.”

Lingen Davies Now

Having been involved with Lingen Davies since 1989, Tim was part of the group that launched an ambitious appeal to raise £1million for a LINAC replacement machine – a big capital project.

Over the years his involvement with the charity was formalised – initially he was the general secretary of the fund and supported trustees, then Executive Secretary and formal advisor to the Board before becoming a Trustee of the newly formed Charitable Incorporated Organisation in 2017.

“I have held a lot of roles in Lingen Davies and seen a lot of money raised over the years,” Tim said.

“Now as Chair, I have a valuable history and memory of both the charity and the local NHS, I feel like the organisational memory, I’ve been part of it for so long.

“It’s very helpful and I’m trying really hard not to look back. I think we’re at a really really exciting point and have stopped becoming a passive charity – ten years ago we were talking to SATH about funding and waited for them to decide what they needed and ask us for money, we just waited.”

“We’re now much more proactive delivering services and we can say to SATH now ‘ask us for help or we will do something else with our resources.”

The changes Tim has seen include the introduction of rehab, community services, and support services.

The Future

“Now, we need our own building offsite to broaden the range of what we can offer, and we need to engage with our supporters and work with them on our next phase,” Tim said.

“We know from the Shrewsbury and Montgomery Fundraising Committees; that we want to talk to people about their experiences of cancer. It’s a real challenge and we need to build the local picture of what people want and the provision of cancer services in the community.

“The long-term vision of Lingen Davies is to include the holistic additions and enhance the support we provide across the region.”

Tim semi-retired in 2021 but his own future still looks very busy. He swapped one big job for five jobs – he is now Chair of West Midlands Imaging Network, Vice Chair of NICE Quality Standards committee, Associate of NHS Providers – delivering training to new NHS Board non-executive directors on quality and performance management, Special Advisor to the NHS England Long Covid peer review service and has got more involved with Lingen Davies.

And outside of cancer, he has taken up the hobby of woodwork and makes objects to sell at market stalls and craft fairs, raising money for Lingen Davies of course.

“My daughter bought me a lathe,” he said. “I’ve played with it a lot but didn’t have time to do it – but now I do and it’s great. I buy materials and sell on behalf of the charities Lingen Davies and Cats Protection, which my wife chose, I just take money back to replace the materials so I can keep on raising money.

“I’ve been working with my head for 40 years and so now I use my hands.”

Tim’s Changing Role - and Always the Expert

Tim trained as a Therapeutic Radiographer, with this background he has been a huge addition to Lingen Davies and during his time supporting the charity he has held various positions within the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust too.

He’s been Head of Radiotherapy, Head of Cancer Services, Oncology Manager including chemotherapy and cancer Services manager, worked with two lead cancer nurses at RSH and PRH, managed medicine and all medical care site-wide, managed surgery, and many more roles; helping patients get access to the care they needed; for example meeting the 18-week standard, as no one was meant to wait longer than 18 weeks to get their cancer treatment, the team ran elective waiting lists at all hours – evenings and weekends – to ensure people were seen in time.

Over 19 years, even though his role had changed a lot, he had been going through the same doors for a long time. It was time to move on.

National Roles

Nationally, Tim joined the National Cancer Action Team as Director of Radiotherapy – an England-wide service working with the Department of Health.

As part of this role, the team introduced a 31-day cancer target for all patients to have treatment from diagnosis. “We saved over 2,500 lives a year by meeting that target,” Tim said.

“There were 52 Radiotherapy departments in the country and that’s one life per week in each Radiotherapy department because people made the effort to clear the backlog.”

Tim also helped write a paper to Parliament called ‘World Class Radiotherapy’ published in February 2024.

Tim was also Head of Hospital Inspection for the Care Quality Commission.

Why Do It

“Radiotherapy was a real opportunity to do something good and make a real difference,” Tim said.

“I could never see myself working in a treatment room for a long time, but the clinical part was very important to me.

Tim treated his last patient in 2001, he said: “I look around the department now and think how much the tech has changed.”

Tims Story | Lingen Davies