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.