In Committee Room 17 of the House of Commons yesterday evening, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Brain Tumours (APPGBT) held its Annual General Meeting (AGM). We are very pleased to confirm that our Chair for the forthcoming year will be Dame Siobhain McDonagh, ably supported by MPs Sarah Owen and Mims Davis, alongside Lord Polak, as the group’s officers.
Brain Tumour Research is once again proud to have been confirmed as the group’s secretariat provider.
Following the formal proceedings, presentations were delivered on a novel form of drug delivery to the brain, the brain tumour vaccine DCVax and a new report on paediatric care from the Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission.
Dame Siobhain lost her sister Margaret, Baroness McDonagh, to a glioblastoma, aged 61. We asked Dame Siobhain for her thoughts: “I was very keen to stay as the Chair of the APPG on Brain Tumours and thank the group’s Officers and Members for their support. My approach this year will be as before – what can we do to improve the options and outcomes for a patient diagnosed with a brain tumour today.
“We will call decision takers and change makers to our meetings to explain how they might work with us to improve a situation that has stagnated for a generation.
"For me, and for many of those involved with the group, this is a deeply personal cause and one I promise to approach with passion, ambition and an overwhelming drive to make a difference. At times I feel we are progressing, but then I hear another story of premature loss of hope and of life.
“I want our APPG to be the vehicle that not only keeps brain tumours high on the political agenda but the APPG that delivers to the people who matter most – patients and their families.”
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