Samantha Dickson Brain Tumour Trust was proud to be part of a successful meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Brain Tumour meeting yesterday (30 January 2012), attended by the Secretary of State for Health, Andrew Lansley MP.
Fifteen of our supporters and staff attended, along with representatives of other Brain Tumour Consortium charities, to quiz the Secretary of State over his plans for the NHS and to seek reassurances that the proposed new Health Bill will not set back brain tumour care.
The packed meeting was chaired by James Arbuthnot MP and started with short presentations from Professor Garth Cruickshank, Consultant Neurosurgeon and brain tumour patient Daryl Gittins.
Prof. Cruickshank appealed to the Secretary of State to ensure that the NICE’s Improving Outcomes Guidance remains an integral part of the care pathway and stressed the need for earlier diagnosis, citing evidence from Birmingham which shows that 85% of brain tumours initially present, not through Primary Care, but through casualty.
Daryl outlined his differing experiences in Swansea and London explaining that his initial NHS Oncologist in Swansea made crucial decisions without any input from him. Ultimately these proved to be inappropriate whereas the treatment he received in London turned out to be less complicated and more suitable. He questioned why patients so often have to rely on the charity sector to navigate the post code lottery which exists in the NHS.
Mr Lansley responded by setting out his vision for the future of the NHS in relation to Brain Tumour care. He outlined the three pillars of his proposed reforms starting with ‘no decision about me, without me’ to address Daryl’s concerns and he explained how shared decision making processes, such as new patient decision making aids, were already starting to help, for example on prostate cancer.
Pillar two focuses on decisions being made by health professionals, not politicians and Mr Lansley explained how he sees new quality guidelines and stronger Cancer Networks will achieve this in a post Primary Care Trust NHS.
Pillar three, he explained, focuses on how best to deliver improved outcomes. He stressed that it is unacceptable that the UK lags behind comparable European nations when it comes to Brain Tumour outcomes and stressed that ultimately he wants survival rates for Brain Tumour Patients to be better in the UK than in Europe.
You can read our live twitter feed from the event at http://twitter.com/SDBTT.
Download our full press release: APPG event full press release.
Samantha Dickson Brain Tumour Trust is very grateful to everyone who attended the event, and we are looking forward to the next of our policy events on 29th February. If you might be interested in attending or finding out more about this, please contact: chawkins@sdbtt.co.uk.