Steve Brine joined a range of colleagues in the House of Commons on Tuesday 2nd July as he hosted the annual Cancer Research UK Westminster Reception.
The annual reception is an opportunity for Cancer Research UK to engage with parliamentarians, such as Winchester & Chandler's Ford MP Steve Brine, with an interest in their work, and also cancer issues in general. This year, the reception focussed on the importance of the early diagnosis of cancer.
More than 1 in 3 people in the UK will develop cancer in their lifetime, and every year more than 150,000 people die from cancer. But the good news is that more people than ever are surviving, and cancer survival rates have doubled in the last forty years.
The work of Cancer Research UK has been at the heart of this progress, but UK cancer survival rates are still lagging behind other comparable countries.
For example, one-year cancer survival rates in Hampshire are 69.9%, which is slightly ahead of the English average of 67.7%, and the number of 60-69 year-olds taking part in bowel screening locally is 64.7%, versus 57.4% nationally, but it is well-recognised that there is much more work to be done.
This year's reception was packed, with over 90 Parliamentarians, including the Public Health Minister, Anna Soubry MP, and Sharon Hodgson MP, who is one of Steve Brine's co-chairs in the All-Party Group for Breast Cancer. In addition, Hampshire's own James Landale acted as a compere.
Before joining the BBC in 2003, James spent ten years as a reporter at The Times. He was chief political correspondent for the BBC News Channel until 2009 when he took up his current post. James was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins lymphoma in October 2008 and has since undergone six courses of chemotherapy.
Speaking after the event, Steve said: "Across the country 23% of cancers are diagnosed at an emergency department and the figure is only slightly below that in my constituency. If ever there was a statistic which shows the importance of early diagnosis for cancer that is it.
"It was a privilege to host CRUK's annual reception and to help push their life-saving messages to so many MPs and Peers who came along. The Government are resolutely focused on saving lives through quicker treatment when cancer strikes, with all the better outcomes that entails, and this event was designed to drive that home among MPs and ensure they become real cancer champions in their constituencies."
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