Raising the profile and funding research must go hand in hand
Despite our efforts, blood cancer remains the third biggest cancer killer in the UK. Watch Professor Michelle West explain how research and fundraising go hand in hand with raising the profile.
Raising the profile is mission critical
At Blood Cancer UK, our mission is to beat blood cancer. We can only achieve this by raising the profile of blood cancer and funding research to bring forward the day when no lives are lost.
But despite huge progress through joint research efforts, 15,000 people in the UK still die of blood cancer every year, and there are many more who are being recorded as having survived, but still die as a result of blood cancer or from the effects of their treatment, sometimes many years later.
Ultimately, our mission to beat blood cancer is being impeded by the low profile and splintered perceptions of blood cancer.
The need for faster breakthroughs
Because so many people with direct experiences of blood cancer don't know they have a type of cancer, we’re missing opportunities to dramatically grow investment and support for exciting research innovations.
Disease pathways that look at how diseases develop so we can prevent them, CAR-T and cellular therapies, genomic medicine, and how to improve diagnosis. As these breakthroughs simply aren't happening fast enough.
Ultimately, without the greater understanding of blood cancer we've described in our campaign, we can’t unlock vital funding, which means it will take longer to get to the day when blood cancer is beaten.
Why we're doubling our fundraising efforts to help beat blood cancer
We're at a turning point: thanks to breakthroughs we've already funded, we can see real potential for research that will prevent people dying from blood cancer within a generation. Doubling our fundraising efforts will help bring this day forward.
If there is one thing our community has proved time and again since we were founded in 1960 it’s this: funding research into blood cancer leads to breakthroughs that save lives.
Childhood leukaemia is an example of this. When our charity was started, just one in ten children survived. Today, that has increased to nine in ten. And we have seen big increases in survival in common types of blood cancer such as chronic lymphocytic leukaemia and myeloma.
The more that blood cancer is seen as a common type of cancer, in the same way that breast and prostate cancer are, the more people will join the cause of funding the research that will finally beat it. And the more success stories we can have across the blood cancer spectrum.
For instance, the increased profile of prostate cancer as a health issue over the last 15 years has led to a big increase in funding for this this type of cancer. We need to learn from this and do the same for blood cancer.
Our five year plan
As a charity, we have ambitious plans to double the amount we’re investing in research in the next five years. Delivering on that will save a significant number of lives and take us closer to the day when blood cancer is finally beaten.
But we are unlikely to achieve this unless more people and organisations help us get blood cancer much more widely understood than it is at the moment.
