On Monday, we attended Breast Cancer Care’s reception in Parliament where they launched the findings of their research into the needs of Black, Asian and minority (BAME) women after treatment for breast cancer.   Their research was funded by the Big Lottery Fund and was a collaboration with King’s College London.

This event was hosted by Dawn Butler MP, whose mother and sister were affected by breast cancer. Speaking at the reception, the Chief Executive of Breast Cancer Care  Samia al Qadhi, summarised the findings stating that BAME women felt  a greater sense of isolation after treatment, there was still a significant amount of stigma associated with breast cancer in certain cultures, there is a lack of culturally sensitive support, a number of communication and language issues, and services do not always meet the needs of BAME women.  Breast Cancer Care explained that to address these issues they piloted a new culturally inclusive service in 2015 called PROWESS (Promoting Recovery, Wellbeing, Equality and Support in Survivorship). This service supported the self-management of BAME women after their hospital-based treatment for breast cancer. You can read more about PROWESS here.

Breast Cancer Care stated that policy-makers must consider the needs of BAME women in the implementation of current cancer strategies and ensure that new policies are inclusive and that everyone working in this area has to develop an understanding of how services can be culturally adapted.

During the reception we also heard from Heather Wilson from the Black Health Initiative in Leeds. Ms Wilson was very supportive of the research and its recommendations and stressed the importance of effective partnerships in addressing the issues raised during the research project.

We applaud the work being done by Breast Cancer Care to address the inequalities that exist in this area and look forward to seeing the next phase of this work. We were pleased to have been a part of the working group for PROWESS and hope that this programme will be launched nation wide.