Client:The Prostate Cancer Charter for Action
Campaign:Speak Out on prostate cancer

By encouraging politicians to ‘Speak Out’ on prostate cancer, the Prostate Cancer Charter for Action achieved a step change in the public and political profile of a hitherto taboo medical condition, as well as securing significant policy outcomes.

Speak Out on prostate cancer – the launch of the Charter’s new policy calls – dominated the media and health policy agenda and led to policy changes which met a number of the Charter signatories’ calls.

The challenge

The Prostate Cancer Charter for Action is a collaboration of over 20 professional and patient organisations with a commitment to tackling prostate cancer. Originally launched in 2003, encouraging progress had been made in meeting the Charter’s original calls.

However, fresh momentum was urgently needed to move the issue up the political agenda. The team was charged with running a campaign to maximise the impact of the Charter’s new policy calls:

• Establishing the Prostate Cancer Charter for Action as a ‘must support’ campaign for politicians
• Stimulating political debate by generating media coverage of issues relating to prostate cancer and the Charter for Action
• Highlighting in Parliament areas of prostate cancer services which require improvement
• Achieving rapid action from Government to address the Charter’s new calls

Solution

In order to make prostate cancer stand out as a key issue in a crowded political arena, and draw attention to its ‘taboo’ status, we asked Parliamentarians to “speak out” on prostate cancer. The world’s first ‘Audio Day Motion (ADM)’ was the creative spark which inspired this successful campaign. Building on the Parliamentary Early Day Motion, the idea of its audio equivalent was to give MPs and Peers an opportunity to Speak Out on prostate cancer.

To ensure a high parliamentary and media profile, the campaign aimed at securing the high-profile support of the three party leaders – by suggesting that they “unite” to speak out on the disease. This would also lead to a number of Parliamentarians ‘following their leaders’ and taking part in the ADM themselves. A message from John Humphrys was also secured, helping achieve buy-in from Today.

In order to ensure that political focus was on prostate cancer on the day of the launch, proactive media briefing was undertaken on the theme of ‘party leaders unite to speak out on prostate cancer.’ Contributions to the Audio Day Motion were also publicised to Parliamentarians’ local media, ensuring a high level of regional as well as national coverage. The Department of Health was extensively briefed to ensure that the Charter’s new calls were understood and received a positive response.

Profile-raising was supported by the development of policy proposals which were both practical and in sympathy with the Government’s wider agenda. Detailed proposals were put to the Department of Health together with suggestions as to how these might be paid for and delivered. The ‘Speak Out’ message was also intended to create a political ‘dividend’ for taking action to tackle prostate cancer, highlighting that the condition has for too long been a taboo subject, receiving scant political or media attention, and that politicians could do something about this in a politically rewarding way.

Result

• The launch received the support of over 250 Parliamentarians. Supporters included the then Prime Minister and leaders of the main opposition parties, representatives of all the frontbench health teams, Health Select Committee and the chairs of the relevant All Party Parliamentary Groups.
• The campaign received widespread coverage in media likely to influence the attitudes of key decision-makers, running on all the major television and radio news bulletins throughout the launch day and securing significant coverage in The Observer, Times, Sun and Daily Mail.
• Issues relating to the Prostate Cancer Charter for Action’s calls were raised in Parliament on over 20 occasions in six months. In addition the Public Accounts Committee published a report which endorsed a number of the Charter’s calls.
• As a direct result of the campaign, the Department of Health took action to address the Charter’s key calls
• The campaign was awarded Communiqué Best Health Policy Campaign and was also shortlisted at the CIPR Excellence Awards