Our Vision 2020 sets out what we want to achieve for people affected by breast cancer. To achieve this vision we need to considerably increase and diversify our fundraising income. Currently, 97% of Breast Cancer Care’s services are funded from income raised by the general public. But unfortunately, we are overly reliant on it being raised by individuals participating in sometimes expensive and weather dependent events and a handful of loyal companies. Our brand is also naturally aligned to women’s high street corporate supporters – many of whom have struggled in the downturn, some have even gone into administration.
To ensure we can deliver our vision we must diversify our fundraising portfolio to be less reliant on these higher risk activities. For example, in 2010, only 8% of our net income came from more reliable methods e.g. donations by direct debit and we plan to increase this to 33% by 2020. So we are currently investing in more dependable, cheaper forms of fundraising but these methods drive up costs in the short term. Our new database is vital in achieving this and replaces our previous version which was installed in 1996 and no longer fit for purpose.
Our plans are rightly ambitious and we are already seeing the impacts of this change with an increase in income and a reduction in relative costs. But unfortunately until we have a solid platform of more reliable funding streams our services and campaigning activities remain vulnerable and exposed.
With regards to the specific spends on this year’s Secondary Breast Cancer Awareness Day, we agree we could do lot more with increased funds and we hope to gather further funding and sponsorship over the coming years. Overall in 2011/12 Breast Cancer Care spent £874K specifically on secondary breast cancer, as well as additional services that are budgeted to other areas of our work, such as younger women or our nurse training programme, but which were specifically aimed to support and inform around secondary breast cancer to that particular target. As you know, there is still a lot more for us to do and we will continue to increase our work and activity in secondary breast cancer within our plans in order to deliver on our ambitious Vision 2020.
There has been some very important feedback and views expressed on the forums for Breast Cancer Care to listen to. However, we have closed the survey and taken off the “sticky” on this thread and now have some work to do collating feedback. We will get back to you once we have further information.
In the meantime, my very best wishes and thank you,
Thank you Diana. Two more questions;
(1) With regard to the 874k you say BCC has spent on secondary BC between 2011-2012. Would you mind providing a break down of that please?
(2) Given that most of the people who have contributed to this thread have objected to the weak theme proposed by BCC for the SBCAD, and feel there are more important and controversial issues that BCC could raise, will you please confirm that BCC will now drop the original theme, and raise the issues discussed here?
Thank you again.
Couldn’t agree more with all you ladies. I filled in the questionnaire with no to everything and put my comments about my concerns in the bottom box.
I was a double whammy person almost 6 years ago and have been relatively well til recently when appendicitis knocked me back a lot.
My body confidence is more a case of do I have confidence in my body responding to treatment long enough for me to have a drug that will treat it as a long term chronic rather than terminal illness. I am also concerned for my family and friends and how they deal with it - the Macmillan TV advert at the moment is excellent and hits the nail on the head in my opinion.
A point made earlier - how many people with sbc do the powers that be at BCC have regular contact with? To know how people feel, you need to speak to those affected regularly and read the secondary threads closely to see what concerns people have.
I am very grateful for this forum and some of the days that BCC run but think they are way off the mark with this one. The day needs TV exposure on say BBC Breakfast and ITV Daybreak Daybreak for a start.
Lizcat, with regard to consultation. I would be interested to know how BCC actually decide what issues they will tackle on behalf of those of us with secondary BC. I know that BCC do occassionally invite people to take part in focus group type days, but having taken part in one of these days, I personally felt the questions were heavily circumscribed. In other words, rather than being asked what our concerns were, we were asked how we felt about this or that campaign (I felt that BCC had already decided what issues it wanted to tackle, and just wanted our opinion on the detail).
The Spotlight Campaign does actually have some sound ane worthwhile objectives, in that it aims to standardize data collection, and improve standards of care through the training of staff. What I don’t think BCC get though is that it doesn’t matter how many standards BCC set, if the NHS doesn’t have the resources, standards cannot be met, and patients cannot receive the drugs/treatments they require .
For example, I was in hospital over Christmas (a cancer ward). The ward I was on was divided up into about ten bays; each containing six beds. On one occasion I could hear buzzers going off all around the ward, and when a frazzled staff nurse appeared on the drug round I commented about the kerfuffle. She explained that she was the only staff nurse on duty, as another had gone off sick, and that due to staff shortages, even one of their nursing auxiliaries had been lifted to work on another ward. With the best will in the world, no nurse can provide the standards of care cancer patients require if they are rushing round like blue ass*d flies. I would also argue that one qualified nurse on duty is dangerous. Apart from anything else, how are the hospital ensuring that the drugs being dished out are being double checked? Similarly there was a chronic lack of junior doctors on duty at night/weekends, and this meant that people who required more pain relief were unable to get it. I personally witnessed a seriously ill cancer patient moaning in pain because they required more pain relief because nurses were unable to get hold of a doctor to authorize it.
Frankly I don’t care a jot about body image. I want to know that if I require a drug/radiotherapy/treatment it will be funded. I also want to know that if I have to go into hospital there will be sufficient staff to look after me. These are the hard issues I would personally like BCC to tackle.
Many thanks to all of you for your feedback and comments on the Secondary Breast Cancer Awareness day survey. As Diana mentioned above, the survey is now closed and we are busy collating and analysing all of the feedback that we have received from this and other channels of research. Your feedback is invaluable to us and we very much appreciate the time that you have all spent in completing the survey and leaving your thoughts. We will be back in touch with you soon to let you know more as we develop this year’s Secondary Breast Cancer Awareness Day campaign.
I finally realise that “body confidence” theme is BCC’s theme for pink October for all bc, and the secondary day is falling within that… see this month’s Woman & Home,
The full article in print features 6 women with their individual stories, beautifully presented, but I was disappointed that none of the 6 scenarios seems to include secondary metastases…