Pancreatic Cancer UK at Labour Party Conference 2025

Keeping pancreatic cancer on the agenda

Party conference season is a crucial time for our team to meet with MPs, Ministers, and policymakers to ensure that pancreatic cancer is a top priority on the Government’s agenda. This has been even more important this year as the Government are currently writing their National Cancer Plan – due to be the first new national cancer plan since 2015.

After the success of our award-winning exhibition stand last year, we hosted another stand again this year which highlighted the importance of earlier diagnosis in catching pancreatic cancer, the killer cancer.

Driving earlier diagnosis through research

This year, we wanted to educate and inspire MPs about the opportunities for transforming earlier diagnosis of pancreatic cancer and saving lives.

To bring this to life, we were excited to be joined on our stand by Dr Jim Ellis and Emma Austin, researchers from Imperial College London, who are developing the world’s first breath test for pancreatic cancer. Emma and Jim were on hand to demonstrate how the test works and offer MPs the chance to try it out for themselves.

We are proud to fund this ground-breaking piece of research which could help health professionals detect pancreatic cancer much earlier and save thousands of lives. Read more about the breath test here.

Record-breaking number of MPs visited our stand to try breath test

A massive thank you to 1320 of our supporters who wrote to their Labour MPs, asking them to visit our stand.

Thanks to you, 109 MPs visited the stand to learn more about earlier diagnosis of pancreatic cancer and the promising development of a breath test for pancreatic cancer – a record-breaking number!

Check the list of MPs who visited our stand to see if your MP popped by.

Find out if your MP visited us

Excitingly, over 70% of the MPs who visited our stand this year were new to us. This offered an invaluable opportunity to raise awareness of the issues facing people with pancreatic cancer with a wider range of parliamentarians.

MPs from across the UK noted the devastating impact of this deadly cancer on people in their local constituencies. The majority of MPs said that they visited our stand after being asked to visit by constituents.

We had valuable conversations with a number of Ministers, including Stephen Kinnock, Minister for Public Health and Karin Smyth, Minister for Secondary Care, to urge them to prioritise pancreatic cancer in the upcoming National Cancer Plan.

We also met with our existing parliamentary champions like Paulette Hamilton, Chair of the APPG on Less Survivable Cancers, who plays a vital role in Westminster in calling for urgent action to tackle pancreatic cancer.

Less Survivable Cancers Taskforce Roundtable

As part of the Less Survivable Cancers Taskforce, we hosted a panel event  on the importance of earlier detection and faster diagnosis for less survivable cancers.

Our CEO, Diana Jupp sat on the panel together with Paulette Hamilton (Chair of the Less Survivable Cancers APPG), Josh Fenton-Glynn (MP for Calder Valley and member of the Health and Social Care Select Committee), and Nicola Nuttall (brain tumour campaigner and Trustee of Our Brain Bank). They shared their reflections and recommendations for how we can drive faster diagnosis through better access to primary care, improved diagnostic capacity and greater research into innovative tools – and Diana  emphasised the importance of detecting pancreatic cancer in the early stages  in improving  survival.