This week’s episode brings together two perspectives that rarely sit in the same conversation: someone who spent close to two decades inside the NHS and pharmaceutical industry shaping patient experience programmes, and someone who is now living with the very condition those programmes were built around. Geoff Rollason spent his final years at Pfizer as patient experience lead for UK Oncology before retiring in 2025, and was diagnosed with prostate cancer within two weeks of leaving. He talks to Catriona about what industry gets right, what it still avoids, and what changes once you become the patient rather than the person designing the panel.
Top 5 highlights from the conversation
1. Talking the talk, not walking the walk
Geoff describes a conference where a fellow delegate admitted patient engagement has been discussed for fifteen years without much changing. He points to the pressure pulling organisations away from patients: shareholder returns, not a lack of goodwill, and the fact that there’s little measurable return on the long, slow work of listening properly.
2. What a side effect can take away
Beyond the physical impact, Geoff talks about what hormone therapy can do to a person’s sense of self, describing a man he came across online who was struggling profoundly with the changes to his body and his identity. It’s a reminder that “known side effect” on a drug label can sit alongside real, serious distress in someone’s life.
3. Data collected, but not always used
Reflecting on the Cancer Insights Panel he helped build at Pfizer, Geoff admits it gathered plenty of patient data but struggled to show what changed as a result. He points to a lack of early buy-in from commercial teams, and a simple structural gap: nobody was resourced or rewarded for acting on what patients said.
4. Forty-five minutes versus four and a half thousand hours
Geoff totals up his own clinical contact time over six months: two reviews adding up to around forty-five minutes. Set against the roughly four and a half thousand hours in that same period, it’s a stark illustration of how much of living with a condition happens away from any clinician’s involvement.
5.”I’m not a cancer patient. I’m living with cancer.”
Geoff describes correcting his wife when she referred to him as a cancer patient on the phone, drawing a firm line between the person he is most of the time and the patient he becomes only in front of a clinician. It’s a distinction he says only properly landed once he was living it himself, despite years spent designing programmes meant to reflect exactly that difference.
About the expert
Before joining Pfizer in 2008, Geoff gained almost twenty years’ experience in senior management positions across a number of NHS organisations, before leaving in 2007 to spend fifteen months as a volunteer with VSO, during which he worked in a hospital in South East Asia.
On returning to the UK, Geoff joined Pfizer, initially as Programme Director on the OwnHealth projects before moving into the role of Patient Experience Lead for the UK Oncology business unit. He oversaw a large number of projects conducted with the NHS, and conceived and led the introduction of the Cancer Insights Panel, a first for Pfizer, bringing patient insights directly into the commercial arm of the organisation.
Geoff retired at the end of January 2025, just in time to be diagnosed with prostate cancer.
Medical disclaimer
This content is for general information only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always consult your GP or a qualified healthcare professional if you have any concerns about your health.