Thousands of people helped Cancer Research UK Cross Cancer Out by adding a cross to a giant structure of the word cancer, pledging their support for the world’s leading cancer charity’s campaign to get cancer treatments on the political agenda.
“The public’s support was fantastic to see and we hope that electoral candidates across parties will be spurred on to take political action on cancer.” – Layla Theiner, Cancer Research UK
The structure, set up in London, Birmingham and Manchester last weekend, saw more than 5,500 people add their cross and 1,500 use the #CrossCancerOut hashtag on Twitter to show support for political action to make sure cancer patients are diagnosed earlier and have greater access to treatments.
Thanks to research, survival rates have doubled in the UK in the last forty years, but with more people being diagnosed, determined political action is urgently needed to beat cancer sooner.
Layla Theiner, head of public affairs and campaigning at Cancer Research UK, said: “The public’s support was fantastic to see and we hope that electoral candidates across parties will be spurred on to take political action on cancer.
“The next Government’s decisions will affect how fast and how far we progress in the next five years, towards our goal of beating cancer sooner, so we need all election candidates to make a commitment to ‘Cross Cancer Out’ and help ensure no-one’s life is cut short by the disease.”
Cancer Research UK is asking the public to take two minutes to email their election candidates about the campaign, ahead of the General Election on the 7th May. So far, more than 7,200 supporters have emailed their candidates and more than 350 candidates, across the political parties, have backed the campaign.
For more information and ways to get involved in the campaign, visit cruk.org/crosscancerout or join the conversation on twitter #CrossCancerOut.
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For media enquiries contact the press office on 020 3469 8315 or, the out of hours press office, on 07050 264 059.
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About ‘Cross Cancer Out’
Playing on the idea of a ballot paper, Cancer Research UK’s campaign asks election candidates to help ‘Cross Cancer Out’ by backing a raft of measures to improve cancer survival in the UK.
The charity is calling for determined political action to ensure cancer patients are diagnosed much sooner and have greater access to the best possible treatments including by:
- Continuing support for campaigns to raise public awareness of the signs and symptoms of cancer;
- Committing to increase participation in the bowel cancer screening programme;
- Ensuring equal access to innovative radiotherapy, surgery and effective cancer drugs, including drugs targeted to patients’ tumours.
For more information visit cruk.org/crosscancerout.
