About The Prostate Cancer Charity
The Prostate Cancer Charity was set up in 1996 in response to the urgent need to increase investment in prostate cancer research and to raise public and political awareness of a long neglected disease. The charity is now the UK's leading voluntary organisation working with people affected by prostate cancer. Their vision is a world where lives are no longer limited by prostate cancer. Their mission is to fight prostate cancer on every front - through research, support, information and campaigning.
The Prostate Cancer Charity's CEO explains:
"We have invested over £7 million in research and plan to grow our research investment in line with our overall growth in income. We have supported thousands of men affected by prostate cancer and their families. We provide the only UK-wide prostate cancer Helpline staffed by prostate cancer specialist nurses. Our nurses offer free and confidential information and support to anyone affected by prostate cancer. We also provide free information, tailored to the needs of men with prostate cancer and their families. Our publications are evidence based, independently reviewed and award winning.
Our contact with so many people whose lives have been directly affected by prostate cancer, feeds into all we do, giving us a real breadth of knowledge to underpin our work. An essential part of this is Prostate Cancer Voices - a growing network of people affected by prostate cancer who are invited to contribute their views, opinions and experiences in influencing the development of our services and campaigning.
The Charity has played a key role in raising both public awareness of the disease and political debate about services and support. We are actively engaged in a wide range of initiatives and dialogue with Government, the NHS and healthcare professionals to drive up standards of treatment, care and support for people affected by prostate cancer.
Although we can be encouraged by the significant advances made over recent years in the profile of prostate cancer, we still face enormous challenges in making up the ground lost through the historical legacy of neglect. We aim to meet these challenges through the ambitious programme of activity set out in 'Transforming the future for prostate cancer' - our goals for 2020 and our strategy for 2008-14.
We are mobilising a growing movement for change in the UK in tackling prostate cancer. Every day, more people are joining us - people who are prepared to take some form of action - to donate their time, skill or finances, to support campaigns, to contact the media or to raise awareness of prostate cancer. I hope that our work will inspire you, too, to get involved. I also hope that you will find this website helpful, whatever your interest might be in prostate cancer...and we will always welcome suggestions for improvement."
At 12.20 one April lunchtime, journalist Bill Elliott was told he had prostate cancer, 50 minutes later his wife Val learned she had breast cancer. It is hard to imagine that evening at home. What happened over the coming months, however, is a lesson in how differently people with prostate cancer and breast cancer are cared for in the UK.
"Val moved into a well-oiled process, receiving treatment within six weeks. All I received was a letter from my clinicians saying 'Sorry the Primary Care Trust is not funding your treatment'".
After contacting the Charity and the health editor at the Observer a campaign was mounted. It resulted in the Primary Care Trust changing their mind and Bill was able to receive the treatment he needed.
