Britain Against Cancer 2009

The conference brought together patients, health professionals and policy makers to look at the impact of public policy on cancer services and research.

Tackling cancer inequalities

At this year’s Britain Against Cancer, the APPGC launched the report of its Inquiry into cancer inequalities |. To open the event, the group’s Chair, John Baron MP gave a presentation on the report which sets out eight ‘priorities for action’ to both narrow the gap in survival rates between different groups and improve cancer outcomes for all. These include:

• a separate national body - the National Specialised Commissioning Group - to commission drugs for people with very rare cancers instead of NICE
• the delayed National Cancer Patient Experience Survey Programme to start immediately
• every cancer patient to have an Information Prescription by 2010
• people living with cancer to have regular care needs assessments to tackle the ‘black hole’ in services between health and social care
• legislation to ban sunbed use for under 18s.

View John Baron's presentation [PDF, 97kb] |

 Through the course of the day, Britain Against Cancer delegates heard responses to the report from the Secretary of State for Health, Andy Burnham MP, the Conservative Shadow Health Minister, Mark Simmonds MP, and the Liberal Democrat Shadow Health Secretary, Norman Lamb, all of whom welcomed the APPGC’s recommendations and took questions from the floor on how cancer inequalities can be tackled. Furthermore, the National Cancer Director, Professor Mike Richards, spoke in an afternoon plenary session to give his assessment of the year.

View Mike Richard's presentation [PDF, 201kb] |

The APPGC will now await the Government’s formal response to the Inquiry report as part of the National Cancer Equality Initiative’s vision document, which is expected to be published at the beginning of 2010. The group will also work throughout next year to encourage the Government to accept the report recommendations and work in partnership with other relevant organisation and agencies to develop a plan for implementation.

Breakout sessions

Six breakout sessions, lead by experts in their fields, were held through the course of the day, looking at the nature of cancer inequalities and ideas for how to tackle them.

You can find notes and presentations from the speakers on the links below:

Wider access to drug treatments |

Research and technologies |

Public health and prevention |

Rarer cancers |

Survivorship |

Awareness and early detection |

With thanks

The All Party Parliamentary Group on Cancer would like to thank the supporters of the Britain Against Cancer 2009 Conference. All have a medical expertise and commercial interest in cancer, but had no involvement in the programme of the conference:

AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKlein, Novartis, Pfizer, Roche, Sanofi-aventis, Sanofi-Pasteur MSD