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Quality care. Everywhere.

Men face a postcode lottery when accessing prostate cancer services across the country. This is unacceptable. Take action now.

Over the past few months we have been:

Talking to men affected by prostate cancer, their partners, friends, relatives and carers to understand what aspects of care matter most to them.
Asking MPs, MSPs and local councillors to hold meetings in their communities to gather the views of people affected by prostate cancer in their area.
Talking to health professionals to get their views on quality care.

We've taken on board everything men, their families and health professionals have told us and developed draft standards that set out good quality prostate cancer care. Now we'd like to know what you think.

You can help shape these standards by taking action now.

You can also sign up for our campaigning newsletter so we can keep you up to date.

April update

We held two campaign days in March - one in Westminster and one in the Scottish Parliament in March to tell MPs and MSPs about our work.

Nearly 60 MPs and 65 MSPs have supported Quality care. Everywhere.

Over 300 people have responded to our survey to tell us what they think of our draft standards of care. Thank you to everyone who has taken part! Our report on the survey will be available soon.

Why did we launch this project? +: We want to improve prostate cancer services across the UK. We want to identify the best standards of care so that men know what they deserve so healthcare providers can supply the best services.
We will use our findings to feed into national prostate cancer guidelines and ensure men know what standards of care they should expect.
What's happening in England and Wales? +: In England and Wales, the findings of this work will be used to push for the speedy development of a quality standard for prostate cancer by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE). A quality standard is a set of statements which set out what quality care should look like. They can be used by patients to check they are receiving the best standard of care and by health professionals and healthcare commissioners to check that they are providing the best quality services possible.
Unfortunately, we have recently found that the development of these important standards will be delayed until 2013. In the past, when guidelines on prostate cancer care have been delayed it has led to men with prostate cancer reporting a significantly worse experience of care than men with other common cancers. We do not want to repeat the same mistakes.
What's happening in Scotland?+: In Scotland, we will use our findings to push for improvements in the Quality Performance Indicators (QPIs) for prostate cancer, which are important guidelines which set out the standard of care men should expect in Scotland.
The QPIs for prostate cancer are currently being developed, but the yare far from comprehensive. We also want to make sure that the views of men with prostate cancer are included within the Indicators.
Quotes+: John Baron MP, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Cancer said:
"I very much support the work The Prostate Cancer Charity is doing to identify standards of quality prostate cancer care. It is unacceptable that the quality of prostate cancer services varies across the country.
"The charity's work will help to redress some of these inequalities and I hope my colleagues will join me in supporting this work."
Care Services Minister Paul Burstow MP said:

"For men with prostate cancer and their families, the experience of care can be as important as the clinical outcome of the treatment.

"The Quality Care Project that The Prostate Cancer Charity is doing will make a vital contribution to driving up the standards of cancer care."

Our publications
We publish a range of publications for men affected by prostate cancer and their families.
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