Over the last fifty years, successive governments have failed to make pancreatic cancer and other less survivable cancers a priority. We have been making the most of the General Election as an important opportunity to drive progress on pancreatic cancer in Parliament.
Thanks to over 63,000 of our amazing supporters who signed out open letter to party leaders, two political parties with growing influence in Westminster, the Liberal Democrats and the Green party, have committed to make pancreatic cancer a priority in the next Parliament. We couldn’t have achieved this without your support.
Now the election has been decided, all our MPs – new and returning – are considering ways to have an impact in the next five years.
Will you join over a thousand supporters who’ve asked their MP to stand with us in the new Parliament?
One week before the General Election we handed in our open letter, signed by over 63,000 supporters who backed our Demand Survival Now manifesto.
Lewis, who is leading our campaign, led our march.
Lewis’s dad died in May 2019, aged 59, just six months after he was diagnosed. Sadly, he received his diagnosis too late to receive the only potentially curative treatment, surgery.
“It was tough for Dad. We started to see him decline pretty quickly, and that was hard. He was always active throughout his life; he was a strong guy and seeing someone like that get weaker and weaker is devastating.
From the point of Dad being diagnosed, we had six months with him. This is double what most people get, so we were incredibly lucky to have that time. Six months left with your dad is no time at all. It’s very easy to feel that you have been robbed of precious memories.”
We need the new UK Government to commit to doubling survival for pancreatic cancer and the other less survivable cancers.
For pancreatic cancer, this means:
Dear Rishi Sunak, Sir Keir Starmer, Sir Ed Davey, Carla Denyer, Adrian Ramsay and Richard Tice,
This General Election, we’re saying enough is enough. We Demand Survival Now for people with pancreatic cancer.
For over fifty years, UK governments have left pancreatic cancer, and the other least survivable cancers, behind. In 2024, over half of people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer are still dying within three months. The UK is falling behind the rest of the world. We are 29th out of 33 countries for five year survival. This is unacceptable.
Successive governments haven’t invested in the research needed to transform the future of pancreatic cancer. And to make matters worse, they’ve also missed crucial opportunities to improve survival and people’s experiences of treatment and care now.
Today, people are waiting too long to get diagnosed in the UK. 80% of people are diagnosed at an advanced stage when it’s often too late to survive. Nearly half are diagnosed in an emergency setting.
On top of this, people wait too long for treatment and become too ill while they’re waiting. So 7 in 10 receive no treatment at all – not even chemotherapy. Because of this, every year thousands of people miss out on the chance to survive, and invaluable time with their loved ones.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. Other countries have acted to improve people’s chance at surviving this disease. And you can too.
This General Election, you can finally end decades of injustice by committing to doubling survival for pancreatic cancer, and the other least survivable cancers in your manifesto.
You can end injustice by:
Pancreatic Cancer UK has worked with the healthcare and research communities, as well as people with this deadly disease to develop the solutions we need. We call on you and your advisors to meet with the charity as the first step to kickstarting change.
You can be the government that makes the UK a world leader in pancreatic cancer and saves thousands of lives.
“I didn’t realise that pancreatic cancer is one of the more deadly cancers until my dad was affected. But it’s shocking to read that it’s also one of the worst funded. It is being overlooked. I’m very hopeful that we can improve the future for pancreatic cancer patients, so people don’t have to suffer like my dad did.
But we need more than just hope.
We need people in power to commit to investment in research. To commit to getting people diagnosed faster, and into treatment quicker. It is entirely achievable. But it requires those in power to pledge to make improving pancreatic cancer survival a priority.”
