Hi

The MCF is looking for patients/carers to to attend the meeting below:

quote:

All Party Parliamentary Group on Cancer Inquiry into cancer inequalities
Outreach Session. 27th July 2009, 2 – 5pm, Central London venue

As a member of Cancer52, The Mouth Cancer Foundation has been invited to attend an outreach session of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Cancer to collect evidence on cancer inequalities particular to the less common cancers.

The less common cancers suffer from many inequalities compared with the big 4 - inequalities in diagnosis, treatment, research into new drugs, clinical trials to name but a few.

The APPG on Cancer is keen to hear the views of patient/carers/groups/organisations who are less likely to submit written evidence to the Inquiry into Cancer Inequalities - hence this outreach session.

As a stakeholder organisation in the APPGC, the Rarer Cancers Forum has been asked to invite a group people affected by the less common cancers to a session on the 27th July 2009 at a venue in Central London (tba) from 2 - 5pm. The session will be informal and relaxed (similar to our recent Cancer52/NCSI consultation), will be externally facilitated and the content of the meeting will be captured by note takers and submitted to the APPGC inquiry. Second class travel expenses will be paid.

The APPG are particularly interested in hearing directly from people affected by the less common cancers.

Please let me know soon if you are able to attend.

Best wishes

Vinod
Chief Executive
Mouth Cancer Foundation

Hi Dr Joshi

I'll certainly be there in spirit.

Hi Vinod,

I am interested in going, providing it is an opportunity to comment on the quality of care generally as regards the aim of increasing mouth cancer survival rates and not just comparing care inequalities with other cancers.

I don't know much about the quality of services offered to patients with breast cancer etc, but during my interactions with the service during Chaz's illness I identified a number of gaps or weaknesses that would need to be addressed if the UK is to 'catch up' with the US and other countries in Europe. Some are evidently to do with resource constraints - e.g. post treatment screening protocols. However I think, education of health professionals GPs in particular, enhancements in coordination between different parts of the service, and changes in attitudes which could be relatively inexpensive offer opportunities to realise some improvements to UK oral cancer survival rates.

BTW is there anyway we can download the leaflet that you have uploaded so we can read it? Who is the audience? Are there any plans to disseminate it to GP surgeries? Could we be involved in raising resources in order to do so? I think there is an urgent need to communicate several messages to GPs, in partciular:
- 'if a patient of over 40 years old presents with a lump in their neck, assume its cancer until proved otherwise .' It's something that seems well established in the literature and I can't understand why GP's dont take such lumps more seriously.

Best,

Cathy