BIVDA held its quarterly
External Affairs Working Party meeting online on Wednesday 21st October.
The Agenda included
presentations for a Campaign for the NHS restart and Cancer Research UK’s Early
Diagnosis Roadmap.
The potential campaign addresses
the drop in patients attending healthcare settings and undergoing diagnostic
procedures due to uncertainty from the pandemic and is based on an Australian
media and PR campaign titled #Don’tWaitMate. Lisa Harrison (Abbott) and Dan
Evans (Abbott & Vice Chair) brought the idea to the working party and
suggested a UK equivalent be developed for the NHS which BIVDA would lead in
partnership with patient groups and other trade bodies.
BIVDA had already indicated
initial support in principle and are delighted that the Working Party agreed
unanimously to undertake this campaign as an External Affairs Working Party
Project which will consist of a sub-group with secretariat lead.
Dr David Crosby and Dr Talisia
Quallo spoke about the ‘Early Detection and Diagnosis Roadmap’ for cancer
released by Cancer Research UK. Their campaign seeks to make early detection of
cancers a reality within the NHS and to encourage a more co-operative approach
to tackle challenges such as the low-uptake of diagnostics into the NHS,
regulatory hurdles and a lack of market incentives for early diagnosis
products. The team can be contacted here for more information on the Roadmap, which members can find, along with their presentation, here.
The next meeting is scheduled
for the 18th November from 10.30am – 11.30am and details will be sent out
shortly.