Transforming the future for prostate cancer
Our 2020 goals and 2008-2014 strategy document is available to download.
A transcript of the speech by John Neate, Chief Executive of The Prostate Cancer Charity, at the launch of 'Transforming the future for prostate cancer'. .
Tonight’s event is hugely important for prostate cancer. It provides an opportunity to bring together representatives of so many organisations and communities that are crucial to delivering improvements in prostate cancer. There is a real sense as I look around me tonight that what we have is a growing band of great colleagues and friends who are working together and progressively building common purpose as we move forward.
As I look back over the nearly seven years I have been the Chief Executive of The Prostate Cancer Charity – and I can hardly believe it’s been that long! – it is possible to see just how far the cause of prostate cancer has come. Really, by any measure, prostate cancer has climbed the health agenda – research investment and capacity have grown, media and political interest and coverage are much, much higher and public awareness is stirring.
So, for sure, we can be encouraged by the significant progress that has been made and by the hardworking efforts of health professionals, researchers and others, but we still face enormous challenges in making up the lost ground from the legacy of neglect from which prostate cancer has come.
Long term under-funding of prostate cancer has resulted in a plethora of unanswered questions about prostate cancer prevention, testing, treatment and awareness-raising. We also know from national surveys that prostate cancer patients report a worse experience of NHS care than patients with other common cancers. This situation must change – and change urgently – and we will be looking keenly at the next round of national cancer patient experience surveys for evidence that things are on the move in the right direction.
I think that one of the biggest causes for optimism must be the mounting sense, all around us, among the public, that men with prostate cancer have been dealt historically an unfair hand and that they now deserve a proper deal. And not only a fair deal for the men directly affected by prostate cancer, but also the loved ones in their lives and the future generations of men not yet touched by the disease.
We want to seize this public mood and this critical window of opportunity. That is why we are launching, this evening, our ambitious and wide-ranging new programme, ‘Transforming the Future for Prostate Cancer’.
You will be delighted to know that I am not going to go through the document in any detail, but just to say that the strategy sets out five challenging goals for the improvements we must achieve, by 2020, in the prostate cancer landscape.
Putting men firmly at the centre of all we do, the goals are underpinned by hard, measurable targets and focus on: cutting death rates, raising awareness, reducing social and geographical inequalities in access to high quality health services, and ensuring that people affected by prostate cancer have their information and support needs properly met.
And we have included a specific goal relating to African Caribbean communities. As you know, African Caribbean men are three times more likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer than their white counterparts. Yet, currently, only 15 percent of them know that they are at higher risk. African Caribbean people may represent less than two percent of the UK population, but the increased risk and the taboos surrounding prostate cancer within this community are justification enough for building a powerful awareness programme over the coming years.
The changes we need to see in the way that prostate cancer is handled in the UK can only be achieved when everyone concerned – people affected by the disease, charities, health professionals, the NHS, researchers and supporters – all of us – move in the same direction with a sense of united purpose.
Breast cancer campaigners have demonstrated brilliantly what can be achieved when their efforts are harnessed relentlessly in challenging the status quo. Following their example, we need to do the same for men.
The Prostate Cancer Charity – as the largest and most comprehensive of the voluntary organisations in the UK focused on this disease – has a particular responsibility to set the pace and to work collaboratively with individuals and groups across the UK, with the NHS and the research community, with policy makers, politicians and the media, to galvanise action and to create a movement for change in tackling prostate cancer. The public expects that of us.
At the recent Movember gala parties, I felt so humbled and touched by the number of people who came up to me, wanting to tell me their own personal stories about prostate cancer – about how their grandfather or father had been affected – and to say how grateful they were that work was underway to raise awareness and to tackle this disease that can so devastate families. What we are doing truly gives them hope for the future.
I am delighted this evening to be able to share this platform with men who have major responsibilities for tackling cancer – with Mike Richards, Harpal Kumar and Cierane Devane. And earlier, with Max Clifford, someone with great influence. This provides a visible demonstration of our willingness to collaborate in taking action.
The signs are promising and the direction is set. Now is the time to act. Now is the time to work together. Let those who look at our progress in 2020 judge that we met the challenge. Let them judge that we truly transformed the prostate cancer landscape. Let them judge that we moved convincingly closer to a world where lives are no longer limited by prostate cancer - for that has to be our relentless vision.
Thank you for being part of this collective vision. Thank you.
John Neate, Chief Executive