Celebrating 25 years - Bowel Cancer UK

In 1987 the charity Bowel Cancer UK was founded.

On Wednesday, 18th April 2012, we were invited to Westminster to celebrate the event.
Can you imagine my excitement?

We caught the lunchtime train from Bristol and arrived at Paddington station, London, two hours later. We hopped in a black cab and shortly arrived at the Houses of Parliament.

Queueing outside along with many other visitors I took the opportunity to take a few photographs. An impressive statue of Oliver Cromwell stands on the green at the...Cromwell Green entrance!

All visitors are subject to a rigorous security scan and bag search. Once you've been through security you enter Westminster Hall (link). You then walk the length of the building and climb the staircase at the end, which takes you to the Central Lobby.

At 4pm we were invited into the Dining room to start the celebrations. Guests included the host MP John Baron, the CEO of Bowel Cancer Uk(BCUK) - Deborah Alsina, Charlene White - ITN presenter and Patron, the BCUK team, invited MP's, Bowel Cancer survivors & Patient support and Pharmaceutical companies.

After an hour of networking the speeches began. John Baron MP started the speeches after a Welcome and Introduction by BCUK's Policy & Affairs Nick Bason. A major part of the Celebration included the launch of the 2025 challenge saving and improving lives report. This sets out the ambitious targets and call to action on reducing mortality, increasing survival rates and improving patient experience for people affected by Bowel cancer. John Baron MP opened his speech by saying how much progress BCUK has made in the last 25 years and congratulated the charity on all that it had achieved. He referred to the report produced by BCUK - 2025 challenge saving and improving lives. The report sets out what needs to be done, here are just a few of these bullet point calls to action:

*Detect and diagnose bowel cancer at an earlier stage
*Improve treatment rates for all groups of society
*Ensure access to the best treatments for advanced cancer
*Improve bowel cancer patient safety
*Help people recover from treatment
*Provide high quality palliative care
*Improve data collection
*Redouble research efforts

The next speech from Barbara Moss (Ambassador/Patient Support for BCUK) survivor was extremely moving. I had to control my emotions throughout as the tears welled up during Barbaras amazing story. You can read all about her journey in the book Barbara wrote called - "Who's been peeping in my bed?"

Next, with a very hard act to follow was Deborah Alsina the CEO of BCUK. Her speech was inspired. Her determination to achieve the challenges set out in the report were evident throughout her speech. The message Deborah delivered was from the heart. I cried openly as I knew that when she said she does all of this work because she cares about people, I knew that she did. Deborah has supported me relentlessly throughout my bowel cancer journey. Always reminding me to Believe. How she finds the time to support myself and many others like me I do not know. I don't think she ever sleeps! BCUK lead by Deborah are an amazing charity and their achievements over the past 25 years are nothing more than incredible.

The final speech was delivered by one of the Patrons of BCUK, Charlene White the ITN presenter. Charlene sadly lost her mum to bowel cancer when Charlene was young. Clearly the charity that she supports is very important to her and her support as she said will help other children from losing their mothers to bowel cancer in the future. It was another very emotional and moving speech.

To sum up the event, here are some of the descriptions used by attendees from an email expressing their gratitude to BCUK's Nick Bason, Head of Policy for organising such a successful and important day: Fantastic, Upbeat, Uplifting, Inspiring, Positive, Encouraging and Excellent!

I am looking forward to being more involved with BCUK in the future and helping this fantastic charity on into 2025!