MP Siobhain McDonagh has used the House of Commons’ ten minute rule to introduce a new brain tumour bill.
Ms McDonagh, a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Brain Tumours (APPGBT), and who spoke during March’s Brain Tumour Debate, has been driving her brain tumour agenda forward in memory of her sister Margaret, Baroness McDonagh who died in June from a glioblastoma (GBM), aged 61.
Her bill, introduced yesterday, seeks to:
- Set a target for the number of GBM patients who take part in clinical trials each year
- Require training for medical oncologists to include training relating to brain cancers
- Include provision that any drug that has been licensed for use on tumours must be trialled on people with brain tumours
- Make further provision in relation to neuro-oncology multidisciplinary teams in the NHS, including a requirement that each such team must include a medical oncologist
- Require manufacturers of drugs licensed to treat tumours to make those drugs available in specified circumstances for clinical trials relating to brain tumours; and for connected purposes
Brain Tumour Research supports the bill and our Director of Research, Policy and Innovation, Dr Karen Noble, said: “Siobhain is a passionate and tenacious campaigner and the ambition of her bill is one that we would definitely sign up to. The route to these outcomes though needs a multi-layered approach with planning, infrastructure and stakeholder support to match the strategic aims.”
A group of MPs have now been identified who will support Ms McDonagh’s bill which will have its second reading at Westminster on Friday 24th November.
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