More Exciting Campaign News!

Hi everyone,

Hope you all had an amazing Easter weekend :) 

I’ve literally just been told some brilliant news regarding the Voice for Radiotherapy campaign, which was our biggest ambassador campaign of 2011.

On Thursday, the department of Health announced plans to boost radiotherapy services in England. This will help people gain access to the world class radiotherapy treatments which has previously been a big problem in this country.

Andrew Lansley MP (The Secretary of State for Health) has also announced plans for significant government funding for new centres specialising in proton beam therapy. One in Manchester (The Christie) and one in London (University College London Hospital). Up to £250 million will be invested in these centres which should be fully available by 2017.

According to my bosses at CRUK, around 1,500 cancer sufferers will benefit from this every year.

Just to inform you, proton beam therapy is a special form of radiotherapy which uses beams of protons instead of x-rays. This enables a higher dose of radiation to be sent straight to the cancer and hopefully causing less damage to surrounding healthy tissue. This means patients should have fewer side effects. This treatment is really useful when treating cancers surrounding vital organs and tissues such as the spine or brain. It can also be used to treat complex childhood cancers. America, France and Switzerland already use proton beam therapy and introducing it on the NHS in England will mean patients no longer have to travel abroad to receive such important treatment.

I am so so excited by this news. Many of you will have signed our Radiotherapy petition and I sincerely thank you for that because without your signatures we may not have had such good results with the campaign. Pat yourselves on the back – you’re helping to change the face of cancer treatment in the UK and save people’s lives! I really want to thank all the family and friends that helped me get signatures, I know I bugged you all and I really do appreciate the support!

Again, I pay tribute to my fellow ambassadors – hard working and amazing! We’ve done it again! Its days like today that really make me proud of the work we do!

Have a great day everyone!

xxx