APPG on brain tumours meets today

1 min read

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on brain tumours (APPGBT) is holding its autumn meeting – virtually of course – today. Chaired by Derek Thomas MP, a varied agenda will be discussed by MPs and Peers all of whom have an interest in improving the options and outcomes for brain tumour patients.

The meeting is themed: ‘Reducing the social and economic burden of brain tumours’. This references the 2018 report by the APPG: ‘Brain Tumours – a cost too much to bear?’, which is available for download here.

At the APPG’s July meeting, Mike Batley, Deputy Director of Research Programmes at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), who is accountable for the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) research programmes at DHSC, told the APPG that just £6 million of the proposed £40 million of money set aside by the NIHR in 2018 for brain tumour research over the following five years had actually been allocated. Derek Thomas MP, Chair of the APPG, Lord O’Shaughnessy the Health Minister in 2018, and brain tumour scientist Dr Kathreena Kurian have since met, and at today’s meeting, Dr Kurian will present on a new pathway for effective and successful applications by brain tumour scientists in a drive to get more of the £40 million allocated for its original purpose.

Other topics for discussion will be the issues facing brain tumour patients returning to driving having had to surrender their driving licence on diagnosis, the relevance to UK brain tumour patients of the worldwide Brain Tumour Patients’ Charter of Rights and the barriers to UK clinical trials for new brain tumour therapeutics.

Minutes of the meeting will be posted on our website on Friday, as will a briefing for today’s meeting produced for Parliamentarians. Keep up to date by following the hashtag #APPGBT on Twitter today and join our campaigning database to stay fully looped into the Brain Tumour Research campaigning agenda. Full details are here.

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