What is the Tessa Jowell Foundation and the Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission?

The Tessa Jowell Foundation is delivering Baroness Tessa Jowell's legacy by raising funds to expand and accelerate the delivery of the Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission (TJBCM). They aim to radically reform the way the NHS can treat and care for brain cancer patients. 

" We have to put patients back at the centre of the picture. Medicine and innovation at their absolute best should be there to do something very simple: to enable patients to re-establish the ‘magic of the ordinary "

The TJBCM are undertaking a number of important projects, the one you might be most eager to read about now is their Centre of Excellence awards across the UK - this could be particularly useful if you are looking for the best care available within the NHS. Since its inception 17 NHS hospitals have been awarded. 

"The Tessa Jowell Centre of Excellence designation initiative recognises and awards neuro-oncology centres for their excellence in patient treatment and care and research. It aims to enable and encourage as many centres as possible to achieve ‘Centre of Excellence’ designation to collectively raise the bar and set an example across the cancer community on how this type of effort can lead in the treatment of rare cancers.

The TJBCM has worked with the community to set Standards of Excellence which go beyond today’s existing guidelines, covering clinical practice, patient care, staff training opportunities, access to clinical trials and research opportunities. Led by a committee of experts, centres are assessed against these standards by undergoing a rigorous assessment process including an extensive application form, virtual site visit and patient feedback collected by the Brain Tumour Charity"

You can read more information and the list including links of Centres of Excellence here.

The TJBCM is currently working on Tessa Jowell Centre of Excellence for children. You can read more about it here.

Click the image below to go straight to all of the information for the programme portfolio:

tessa jowell brain cancer mission

Jess Mills

Every single one of the programme portfolio is very exciting for the brain tumour community. I'm personally very interested in the Mindaroo Precision Brain Tumour Programme after hearing a BBC radio interview with Jess Mills. If there is one thing Stu, myself and our families hope for more than anything (aside from a miraculous cure being found) it's that the NHS will integrate precision medicine as the gold standard for brain tumour patients and calling GBM incurable will become a thing of the past. Personalised precision treatment is the mission that we took on (outside of the NHS) and one that we believe is the future of cancer treatment. Personalised cancer treatment solutions will only be possible if genetic sequencing is available to everyone under the NHS. 

When I win the lottery my first donation will be into this project. 

"The Minderoo Precision Brain Tumour Programme, in partnership with the Minderoo Foundation, University of Cambridge, the NHS, and Illumina, is a landmark project providing brain cancer patients in the UK with access to a new level of innovation and excellence in treatment and care.

The Programme aims to successfully integrate precision medicine – where genomic information about a person’s tumour is used to diagnose and plan targeted treatment – into routine care in the NHS clinical setting for brain tumour patients".

You can read more about the Mindaroo Precision Brain Tumour Programme here. 

If you'd like to help the Tessa Jowell Foundation to raise funds to facilitate these projects you can find more information here.

If like us you'd like to become part of the Human Sized Picture and support the Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission with some merchandise you can find the
link here

" For what would every cancer patient want?
First to know that the best, the latest science was being used and available for them "

Dame Tessa Jowell

"We (Tessa Jowell Foundation), and our partners at the TJBCM, have created a radical new approach to deliver Tessa's legacy by driving innovation and excellence in all aspects of NHS brain cancer treatment and care through the national network of NHS Tessa Jowell Centres of Excellence: to ensure excellence for patients of today, whilst paving the way for making brain cancer treatable for the future. To date, 17 hospitals across the UK have been designated as Tessa Jowell Centres of Excellence, covering a population of 40 million people.

The TJBCM work to date has been commended by the NHS as being "unprecedented and exemplary" and is beginning to show real impact for both brain cancer professionals and patients. Brain cancer is the biggest cancer killer of children and adults under 40, so we are now supporting the expansion of the work for this age group with the NHS Tessa Jowell Centres of Excellence for Children.

In her famous last speech in the House of Lords, Tessa appealed for society’s big problems to not be put into the “too difficult box”.  

The Tessa Jowell Foundation is focused on raising much-needed funds so that the TJBCM is able to deliver its hugely ambitious national programmes that serve to close shocking health inequality gaps in the UK"

We first connected with the team at the Tessa Jowell Foundation to support their fundraising and raise awareness of the brilliant work that they do. They are actively changing the way brain tumours are treated within the NHS in the UK. Constantly striving for better in every aspect:

- Accelerate Brain Cancer Research
- Advance Precision Medicine and Novel Treatments
- Elevate Care for Today's Patients
- Connect and Train the NHS

It sounds like a mission we want to get onboard with! When Stu was diagnosed we had to quickly get up to speed with everything brain tumour related - we felt unsupported in our quest to get access to the latest GBM treatments and feeling you have to be the doctor, nurse, carer and fundraiser is overwhelming. To know that Centres of Excellence are across the UK is a HUGE step in the right direction.