Radiotherapy Charity Launched

A new national charity which aims to help the fight against cancer was launched at Westminster in July: ACORRN (Academic Clinical Oncology and Radiobiology Research Network) – Action Radiotherapy wants to raise £5million to improve radiotherapy treatment for patients.

Demand for radiotherapy services is expected to almost double over the next few years – yet a mere 6% of money spent on cancer research in the UK goes towards research to advance radiotherapy practice.

It means that Britain is now lagging behind other parts of Europe and the USA in terms of introducing vital new radiotherapy techniques and many patients are without access to state-of-theart treatment.

ACORRN – Action Radiotherapy – the first UK-based radiotherapy charity - is therefore mounting a major fund-raising campaign with donations used to support the research network, improve treatment methods, to work with both patients and radiotherapists to support their needs and work with policy makers to prioritise radiotherapy research and clinical practice.

An interactive website was also launched to meet the needs of researchers, staff and patients. It allows more than 1,600 representatives from the medical profession – all members of the ACORRN network - to share expertise interactively as they look for safer ways to provide radiotherapy treatment and, in turn, cure more cancer patients. The charity works alongside all 62 cancer centres in the country. This means that anyone throughout the UK, regardless of where they live, will know their local treatment centre will have access to the best opinion and knowledge to improve their radiotherapy treatment.

Professor Pat Price, Chair of ACORRN, said: “We’re working together with researchers, funders, policy makers, patients, the NHS and the private sector to improve radiotherapy services and treatments for all cancer patients. In this era of austerity we aim to cost effectively improve radiotherapy treatment. It is an important area of science but has been under-represented in recent years."

The interactive web site allows members from related fields to share knowledge and make a step change in radiotherapy treatment in the UK. “Our motto is that individually we are not as strong but together we can be competitive internationally. By networking we don’t have to spend that much money to make a big difference.”

ACORRN was established as an initiative of the National Cancer Research Institute and received an initial start-up grant. It proved so popular that it is now operating on a self-funding basis so has established the charity ACORRN - Action Radiotherapy to generate its own income to reach its £5m target to carry out its work.

Its fund-raising efforts are now swinging into action, with Trustees confident the value of radiotherapy to cancer sufferers will convince donors of the merits of supporting the charity.