Crawley MP, Henry Smith, has committed to working with patients and the town’s Clinical Commissioning Group to ensure high quality and safe care is secured for bowel cancer patients.

At a recent ‘Be Loud Be Clear’ Parliamentary Reception, Henry heard from both bowel cancer patients and the charity, Beating Bowel Cancer, about the importance of good experience for all patients.

Henry commented: 

“I’m happy to sign this pledge and support the principles in any way I can. I shall be working closely with NHS West Sussex and the local Clinical Commissioning Group to ensure they are providing the ‘gold standard’ when it comes to treating bowel cancer patients.

 “I firmly believe that patient experience should be an integral part of the NHS and that it’s important that better care is secured for all bowel cancer patients.

“The Government has published its cancer strategy, Improving outcomes: A strategy for cancer. This sets out a plan to save an additional 5,000 lives every year by 2014-15 through earlier diagnosis and improved access to services such as screening and radiotherapy.  The Health Secretary has provided £50 million of additional funding for cancer drugs in 2010-11 and has now established a £600 million Cancer Drugs Fund over the three years since April 2011.  To date, this additional funding has so far helped over 12,000 cancer patients in England to access the cancer drugs their clinicians recommended.”

To find out more about bowel cancer and to read the full Service Pledge, please visit the charity’s website: www.beatingbowelcancer.org.