Patients' Constituency

I trained in London as a science teacher and worked in Africa, the Middle East — and latterly Northamptonshire. My early retirement in the Welsh Marches was interrupted by a diagnosis of advanced ovarian cancer. Chemotherapy at Cheltenham Hospital brought remission and joining the committee of Ovacome convinced me of the vital role of patient involvement in improving services. Activity in Hereford Hospital Cancer User Group encouraged me to draw attention to the plight of the out-of-county patient by standing as governor.

NEWS

Patron of the charity Hope for Tomorrow Sir Stirling Moss and Sandra at the launch of the mobile chemotherapy unit in February 2007.

The highlight of the last month has been the co-presentation of the National Consensus Statement on the symptoms of ovarian cancer. I have been working on this for some time and was delighted that our work was to be officially launched in the House of Lords and thoroughly enjoyed the reception there. It was good to meet with so many dedicated politicians, the National Cancer Director, leading clinicians and the representing charities. We are all passionate about our project which we hope will improve the early detection and treatment of this disease. Treatments and survival have not improved in the last two decades in the UK. A GP version will follow later this year. Our hosts were Baroness Ashton and David Lammy, Minister of State.

Having been awarded a bursary to attend the NCRI conference in Birmingham I spent four days there, once again meeting many old friends from the world of research and making many new ones. It was encouraging to meet so many patient representatives and to hear so many relevant presentations. The National Cancer director was there as was Professor Michel Coleman who I met again later that week in Tewkesbury at the 3CCN Education Day entitled "Pathway to Excellence."

I was approached by Macmillan who asked me to help spearhead their new campaign concerning the anomalies within the "individual funding" request panels which exist within PCT's and lead to the post-code lottery in access to treatment. This was followed by an interview with the Health Editor from the Observer on Sunday concerning my recent experiences and will be appearing in the Observer on Sunday October 25th, the day before the press release. I sincerely hope that the article is accurate and most of all helpful in supporting this much needed campaign which we hope will bring an end to anomalies within the present system.

If you have ANY health service issues please do contact me through the Foundation Trust.

I have been working with a group to produce the National Consensus Statement on the symptoms of ovarian cancer. The draft has now gone to the wider group for comment and will be published later this year. It is hoped that this statement will result in fewer patients being misdiagnosed.

I have joined a 3CCN group who are working on information prescriptions which will ensure the timely and accurate dissemination of written information to patients treated by the network. this is a requirement of the Cancer Reform Strategy.

The Macmillan Information and Support Service pilot scheme which has been operating in Herefordshire has now produced an evaluation of this project. I have been a patient representative with this group during the work carried out by the two social workers who have been responsible for the project.

I was delighted to be asked to join the 3CCN Commissioning meeting at which the devolution of radiotherapy was to be decided. The new option of linear accelerators at Hereford and Worcester received universal acclaim. This is going to make treatment for Herefordshire and Powys patients so much easier to access as travel times will be cut substantially. Present travelling distances are believed to be the longest in the UK.

I helped present the 3CCN bid to host a pilot project for the national survivorship initiative. We were delighted that our bid was successful and we will be developing, testing and evaluating new approaches for the management of active, progressive and recurring cancer. Our main focus will be taking services out into the community and we have some exciting ideas to implement.