Absolutely delighted to hear the NICE announcement today that advanced pancreatic cancer patients in England will be allowed access to the life-extending drug, Abraxane, on the NHS. This campaign started because we felt passionately that patients in England should have the same treatment options as those in Scotland, Wales and most of the rest of Europe and now, thanks to NICE’s decision, this is the case. Sadly, I understand that Northern Ireland are still the exception – I hope this changes soon. On average Abraxane can extend a patient’s life by two months and when you consider how little time most pancreatic cancer patients have left upon diagnosis (merely months), this is significant. For us, two more months would have meant one more Christmas and one more birthday with Kevin. There are very few treatment options for pancreatic cancer patients so this news today really is to be celebrated. Thank you so much to each and every 112,176 of you that added your name to this campaign – I’m sure we played a small part, along with all of the charities and voices elsewhere, in helping to keep this in the public eye. This is the second time this week that pancreatic cancer has hit the news. Surgeon Keith Roberts featured the pilot scheme in Birmingham which is cutting the average time to surgery for patients found early enough for that option. This too looks promising and we have to be encouraged by the steps we are seeing and hope that one day pancreatic cancer patients may have much better outcomes than currently. My focus now will continue to be on raising awareness, particularly symptom awareness. More awareness and early recognition of the symptoms could lead to more people being diagnosed at an early, operable stage which is the only way to survive. Please give yourself a fighting chance and make yourself symptom aware. You can check out the symptoms at the #HopeIsContagious website www.hopeiscontagious.co.uk Thank you again for your amazing support of this campaign - I am truly grateful that you chose to add your voice and that we are seeing this news today - thank you!