‘One Cancer Voice: A manifesto for people living with cancer’ calls for the next Government to improve the lives of cancer patients by:
- Preserving the UK’s status as a world-leader in cancer research
- Putting the right staff in place
- Diagnosing cancer earlier
- Ensuring people living with cancer have access to the appropriate treatment and psychological support
- Supporting people living with cancer beyond their treatment
- Preventing people from developing cancer
Brain Tumour Research was delighted to contribute to this cross-cancer sector document and strongly supports all of its recommendations.
We are especially pleased to see that One Cancer Voice has a focus on cancer research. Some of these research-orientated calls, such as increasing access to clinical trials and ensuring that clinicians have time to participate in research, mirror those in Brain Tumour Research’s Find A Cure manifesto and we were pleased to help ensure they were included in One Cancer Voice.
Beyond research, One Cancer Voice also advocates for more help to alleviate the financial burden of a cancer diagnosis, a topic Brain Tumour Research examined in our report ‘ Exposing the financial impact of a brain tumour diagnosis’ and then was the subject of an Inquiry by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Brain Tumours in 2018.
This new manifesto calls for the next Government to introduce a Young Patient Cancer Travel Fund to support families who have to incur substantial travel costs when taking their child for treatment – a major issue for many families affected by brain tumours and one that we are raising as part of the Children and Young People with Cancer Coalition. The manifesto also asks for financial service providers to be duty-bound to consider the impact of a cancer diagnosis on their customers’ finances, which is important as a brain tumour diagnosis can result in households being nearly £15,000 worse off per year.