Advocate for Us
Help us advocate for our NET patients.
Advocate for the 31,000+ neuroendocrine cancer patients across Australia and help us make a difference.
The recently released Senate Inquiry report on ‘equitable access to diagnosis and treatment for individuals with rare and less common cancers, including neuroendocrine cancer’ highlights significant barriers NET patients face and offers 41 recommendations for improvement. We need to keep these recommendations on the government’s agenda to ensure ongoing improvements in care and support for NET patients.
Now is the time for us to raise our voices and advocate for our NET community.
Keep us Involved
If you schedule a meeting with your local MP please reach out to NECA so that we can advocate with you.
Key Recommendations
Below are the first 5 key recommendations NECA will strive to obtain for neuroendocrine cancer patients around Australia.
Advocate using these Recommendations
Below are some ways to advocate using the first 5 key recommendations for neuroendocrine cancer patients when meeting with local MPs or other government officials.
Senate Recommendation 18
Meet with your local MP and ask them to:
Provide on-going funding for an awareness campaign to raise awareness of neuroendocrine cancer amongst the Australian general public and healthcare professionals to improve symptom awareness and reduce diagnostic times across Australia.
Provide on-going funding to improve online resources available to neuroendocrine cancer patients, carers and healthcare professionals, including the development of culturally appropriate and multilingual educational materials to increase health literacy and patient empowerment.
Senate Recommendation 21
Meet with your local MP and ask them to:
Provide on-going funding for a specialist neuroendocrine cancer nurse in each state to ensure adequate care to the 29,350+ Australians currently living with neuroendocrine cancer. Providing expert care will enhance overall patient support, and improve overall treatment experiences for Australian NET patients.
Senate Recommendation 27
Meet with your local MP and ask them to:
Provide on-going funding for NET telehealth services to ensure timely and accessible specialist NET patient care, especially for those in rural and remote areas. These services would bridge the gap in healthcare access and could expand beyond specialist NET nurses, to include specialist allied health services such as councellors and nutritionists, as well as teletrials expansion so more patients can participate in trials.
Senate Recommendation 30
Meet with your local MP and ask them to:
Provide on-going funding to promote and incentivise staffing positions and training opportunities for medical professionals and researchers interested in specialising in neuroendocrine cancers. Specialised experts in neuroendocrine cancer will lead to improved patient outcomes and reduced diagnosis times, reducing the financial burden of NET cancer treatments for the Australian Government in the long-term.
Senate Recommendation 34
Meet with your local MP and ask them to:Â
Provide on-going funding to further NET research. Sustainable funding will advance NET research, improve NET treatments, and ensure equitable access to clinical trials for NET patients across Australia. It will help reduce the current disparities in research and clinical trials that affect patients with NETs and ultimately, could lead to a cure or better treatment options for Australian NET patients
Help Us Achieve Our Goals
We want to ensure that we are reminding all local and federal MP’s, political leaders and people of influence on the recommendations that were released by Senate to provide ‘equitable access to diagnosis and treatment for individuals with rare and less common cancers, including neuroendocrine cancer’ any chance we get to ensure that neuroendocrine cancer patients remain seen, heard and cared for with the same level of care that is provided to patients with more common cancers.
If you schedule a meeting with your local MP please reach out to NECA so that we can advocate with you: Add “Invite NECA” wording into the senate recommendation page. Include email address info@neuroendocrine.
We need the help of our NETs community to call upon your local and federal MP’s across the country and ask for their support.
Here are steps you can take:
- Tell them who you are and why you support specific recommendations made in the recent Senate inquiry.
- Let them know it’s time to give neuroendocrine cancer patients the attention, funding and policy they need to improve the quality of life for patients, put policies in place to provide our Healthcare professionals with a roadmap for optimal patient care, and decrease the length of time to be diagnosed.
- Ask the Australian Government for the services we need as outlined within the Senate Recommendations, highlighting particular attention to Recommendations 18, 21, 27, 30 and 34 (as listed above)
Help Us Spread the Word
In addition to reaching out to your local and federal MP, you can help raise awareness of the Senate recommendations across social media.
Download these tiles, upload onto your social media account, add your words, and tag your local or federal MP online. Every touchpoint helps!
