Chair's Report

Welcome to Cancer Equality's annual report for 2005-2006. The past year has been both challenging and exciting for the organisation. We have moved to new offices in Vauxhall, which we share with the Afiya Trust. The Trust have been very welcoming and accommodating to our arrival. The new offices provide Cancer Equality with a more dynamic environment within which we can develop our current projects and future work.

We are especially pleased to announce the launch of two new resources that will be of direct practical benefit to individuals from BME communities. These are our "Caring for someone with cancer" CDs, which have been undertaken in partnership with the Afiya Trust. They are specifically directed to refugee communities who can be especially disadvantaged because of the relatively short time their communities have been in the UK. Cancer Equality's second new resource is Cancer Equality's Diet Guide "Coping With Eating Difficulties When You Have Cancer: A Guide for African and Caribbean Patients". This is the first in a series of diet guides and we are grateful to the Department of Health for funding us to undertake this work.

Cancer Equality was also able to extend the funding to its Information Resource Project for a further year, enabling us to develop our Directory into an electronic database. We intend to make it available to the public and health professionals through our website.

Two key challenges have arisen in the last year, which will be with us for the foreseeable futre. One is the stringent financial climate that NHS Trusts have to operate in. Secondly the welcome announcement that there will be a new Cancer Plan take forward the cancer service improvement work that has already been done and particularly to extend it into the community. However, the new Cancer plan is about "reform" rather than "new resources" meaning that cretive ways of working and funding will need to be found.

In this difficult financial climate Cancer Equality remains committed to ensuring the voice of people from Black and Minority Ethnic community groups is heard and to the delivery of culturally sensitive information. It is for individuals affected by cancer to have a proactive role in their care with the health care professioinals. To this end Cancer Equality has been working on an exciting new initiative which we will make an announcement on in early 2007.

The Management Committtee would like to thank all the individuals and organisations who continue to support us in many ways. We are especially grateful to our four project lead who have done excellent work in bringing our projects to fruition. We hope you find this report stimulating and positive; chage always brings opportunities and we look forward to the challenges in the year ahead.

Patrick Casey
Former Chair