We’re proud to have been involved in the recent Prostate Cancer Conference at The Christie, jointly organised by Prostate Cancer Support (PCS) and The Graham Fulford Charitable Trust (GFCT). Our friends at South Warwickshire Prostate Cancer Support Group (SWaPS) have written a fantastic summary of the day, and we’d love to share their blog:
On May 17th, Doug Badger our Chair attended a conference, jointly organised by Prostate Cancer Support (PCS) and the Graham Fulford Charitable Trust (GFCT). There were ten speakers in all so it was a packed day. Phil Ormesher the chairman of PCS gave an account of the many initiatives that PCS has developed in recent years. They run their own helpline that is staffed by 13 men who each do about 4 weeks a year each. This is a 9am-9pm 365 days a year service. They are a Charitable Incorporated Organisation which provides limited liability to their trustees. Their running costs are less than £5K pa. They sponsor PSA testing in deprived areas in their region and work on the principle that the men should not be expected to contribute more than the price of a pint – £5! They also do a lot of talks in workplaces – 450 in the last ten years. Phil described accepting an invitation from BIFFA to talk to the men at 5 o’clock, before realising there are two 5 o’clocks! He was up at 4am that day.
The next major speaker was Graham Fulford describing the growth of his charity since its inception 21 years ago. He identified 2019 as the turning point for the charity, which is when the CEO, Susan Hart, took the whole operation of booking through to results online. And then pioneered home testing just ahead of the COVID lockdown. Graham outlined initiatives that the charity has under development including an app designed for Black Men and a system for funding second opinions that will be provided by Nuffield Health, a private health organisation. He also spoke about a major project to attract funding for buying HIFU equipment that can be leased to hospitals. He will be coming to one of our meetings this year to expand on this opportunity to invest in local facilities.
We then had a series of descriptions of services in the Manchester area that have been developed with PCS. These included Warrington Wolves Community Foundation, Mentell, a mental health charity for men over 18 and Maggie’s, which supports cancer patients through their treatments and beyond. Dr Steve Allen, a retired anaesthetist and prostate cancer survivor, gave a whirlwind review of all the new treatments that have arrived recently or will do so shortly. His Talk was entitled “What’s new, Pussycat?” and opened with Tom Jones. I will be asking Steve to give this talk to us, probably online in the near future.
Mr Israr Khan gave an account of his working week and made a powerful case for saying that Urology Services are underfunded and that there is an overall shortage of key personnel including surgeons, radiologists and oncologists. It was noted that very few GPs choose to specialise in Urology, so capacity is limited in primary care too. Susan Hart alerted us to the fact that the publication “Knowledge Empowers” that is produced by PCASO (a Prostate Cancer charity covering Dorset, Hampshire and Sussex) is now available online. It is constantly updated so the online version is superior! Go to their website www.pcaso.org and see what you think.
The last speaker was Professor Ken Muir from Manchester University who does a lot of research with the GFCT. He addressed the vexed question of whether population-based screening for Prostate Cancer should be our goal given the capacity issues within the NHS that we are only too aware of. His starting point was the statistic
“Early diagnosis = 95% survival rate; Late diagnosis = 30% survival rate”.
He reviewed the existing range of screening tests and concluded that the Stockholm is the most accurate but is far too expensive to be used for screening. He noted that the accuracy of the GFCT screening when combined with other date gave an impressively good result. His end point was that we should push for population-based screening as this is essentially a resource issue and thus a political choice. This is the most common cancer in men and should be an NHS priority.
Thank you so much to SWaPS for this insightful account of the day. Read the full article here - https://southwarwickshirepcsg.org.uk/2025/05/20/294/#
SWaPS support those in and around South Warwickshire whose lives are affected by Prostate Cancer; the men, their partners and their families. Learn more here - https://southwarwickshirepcsg.org.uk
Read about our new HIFU project - https://gfctfocaltherapy.org.uk