8 November 2018

SaTH is to hold its first ever Cancer Conference featuring a host of speakers including Chris Pointon, husband of the inspiring Dr Kate Granger MBE and co-founder of the #hellomynameis campaign.

The Conference, entitled ‘Cancer: Advancing into the Future’ is being sponsored by Macmillan Cancer Support, and will take place on Friday (9 November) at the Shropshire Conference Centre at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital (RSH).

More than 200 health care professionals from across the West Midlands will be attending the event which will be chaired by Chris – co-founder and global campaign ambassador of the #hellomynameis campaign.

When Chris’s wife Kate was diagnosed with terminal cancer seven years ago, they concertinaed their lives into a shorter period raising over £360,000 for good causes, travelling the world, meeting celebrities and royalty – and starting the global campaign that improves patient care through the basic message of introductions entitled #hellomynameis.

Chris is now on a 12 month sabbatical from his career and talks at conferences around the world to ensure the campaign, and Kate’s legacy, continues for many generations to come.

There will also be speakers at the conference from Public Health England and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), and others including:

  • Dr Elaine Vickers with her talk on ‘Cancer Biology and Personalised Cancer Treatment’. Dr Vickers has worked as a science educator and writer for over 15 years. Her goal is to make the complexities of cancer biology and new cancer treatments interesting and accessible to non-scientists. Her first book “A beginner’s guide to targeted cancer treatments” came out in 2018
  • Dr Nigel Capps with his talk on ‘The 100,000 Genome Project’. Dr Capps is Consultant Chemical Pathologist for Shropshire and Head of Clinical Biochemistry. He is Director of Research & Innovation for SaTH. He is currently promoting the concept of a trial of statins, the commonly used cholesterol lowering drugs, as a potential treatment for cancer. Dr Capps has promoted and supported the involvement of SaTH in the 100,000 Genome Project
  • Mr Mark Cheetham with his talk on ‘Advances in Treatments: Surgery’. Mr Cheetham is Consultant Surgeon and Care Group Medical Director for Scheduled Care at SaTH. His clinical work includes a varied practice across colorectal and general surgery including proctology, laparoscopic surgery, colonoscopy, inflammatory bowel disease and colorectal cancer. Mr Cheetham is a reviewer for the British Journal of Surgery and Colorectal Disease, and a member of the Editorial Board of the World Journal of Surgery
  • Mark Davies with his talk on ‘Saving My Arse’ A patient’s perspective’. Mark was diagnosed at the age of 31 with a T3 rectal tumour and told his options were to have an APR and stoma or 12 months to live. Declining the kind offer Mark set about looking for options and fell upon the organ saving Papillon treatment. Mark has since written and lectured on patient choice and survivorship issues both nationally and internationally, as well as working with charities and support groups to aid patient care
  • Dr Simon Grumett with his talk on ‘Advances in Treatment: Immunotherapy’. Dr Grumett is Consultant and Honorary Senior Lecturer in Medical Oncology at the Royal Wolverhampton Hospital NHS Trust and the University of Birmingham Trust Cancer Lead Clinician. Dr Grumett specialises in the treatment of colorectal and kidney cancers, melanoma and carcinoma of unknown origin
  • Mr Faheez Mohammed with his talk on ’Punching Above Your Weight: Building a Highly Specialized Service in a District General Hospital’. Mr Mohammed is currently Clinical Director of the Department of General Surgery at Hampshire Hospitals Foundation Trust and is the Clinical Lead for the UK Colorectal Peritoneal Malignancy Clinical Database
  • Professor John Saxton with his talk on ‘Stacking the Odds against Cancer Recurrence, Testing Lifestyle Investigations in Cancer Survivors’. Professor Saxton is a Professor in Clinical Exercise Physiology and Head of the Department of Sport, Exercise & Rehabilitation at Northumbria University in Newcastle. He is particularly interested in the role of exercise in primary and secondary cancer prevention and has conducted a number of randomised controlled trials with breast, prostate and colon cancer patients

Jessica Greenwood, Lead Cancer Nurse at SaTH, said: “This is the first SaTH and Macmillan Cancer Conference, so we are really looking forward to it. It has been a year in the making, and we will be welcoming a line-up of fantastic speakers. Some really great work is going on with regards to research and cancer treatment, and we wanted to share it. We are very grateful to Macmillan for their support, and we hope that it will be an inspiring and informative day for all those attending.”