Due to technical problems, we are sharing our latest campaigning update with you slightly later than usual.
Hello from Cambridge,
This week has seen the King's speech to open Parliament.
Key areas covered included;
• Audit Reform and and Corporate Governance
• Planning and Infrastructure
• Employment Rights
• English Devolution
• Rail Reform
However announcements that might influence our world were thin on the ground and it therefore has never been more important for us all to work together to make 'our' agenda 'their' agenda.
The British Neuro-Oncology Society (BNOS) is the leading multi-professional organisation in the UK dedicated to promoting neuro-oncology research, education and patient centred care. Their annual conference has been taking place in Cambridge this week. Co-incidentally during the week of the King's Speech in Cambridge we have been billeted in King's College during the conference.
As we are co-sponsoring a session on Friday with the society, our CEO Dan Knowles has been in Cambridge and we took the opportunity to ask him for his thoughts on our campaigning endeavours and our ambitions for working with the new Government.
He told us " I have have just finished writing letters to welcome in the new Secretaries of State for Health and Social Care and for Science, Innovation and Technology. In both letters the message is the same. It is an exciting time and we can make real progress over the next five years but we need to work together and harness our strengths into a collaborative effort to change the future pathways for UK brain tumour patients and their families. I have a background in science and remain convinced that it is scientific endeavour that underpins progress. This progress is enabled by appropriate funding levels. We are in a fortunate position now that the political will to support our cause is strong but it is beholden on those of us who are in this space day in day out to make sure we propose funding pathways and solutions that are both imaginative but also achievable. It is these prescriptive asks with innovative underpinning that I will seek to develop so we approach new ministers and their teams with options they are able to action with alacrity thus impacting on brain tumour patients as quickly as possible. The support of all of you in helping us to deliver this is so sincerely appreciated."
Working together makes a difference is also the ethos behind a collaboration between UK brain tumour charities announced in Cambridge this week.
In a communication agreed by all stakeholders we state: "Our mission is to ensure all patients with a brain tumour - including those with highly aggressive GBM - receive fair access to the latest innovative treatments. Brain Tumour Research, Brain Tumour Support, brainstrust, the International Brain Tumour Alliance, OurBrainBank, and The Brain Tumour Charity form a group of brain tumour charities and a non-profit organisation that are working together to ensure that patients with GBM have timely access to innovative treatments."
Below we have reproduced the rest of the statement which is comment on "The Issue" and "What we want/what is needed".
There won't be an update next week (I am away moving house!) but the following week (2nd August) as politicians head of on their summer recess we will reflect on the campaigning year 23/24.
Wishing you all a peaceful time until then.
Hugh and Thomas