Currently mental health issues are looked after by a junior Minister who is in charge of care in general. Mental Health issues need to be dealt with separately and the government needs to make sure that people get appropriate care.

This is important not just for prevention but also what having HIV actually means and what it entails. We as a nation are far too unaware of what having HIV actually means and how it is transferred.

I can barely contain my frustration and sadness at our political leadership that in a democratic society can force unsafe working practices and unilateral pay cuts on a group of dedicated, committed and highly trained caring professionals.

In my experience, my partner of the age of 31 started to have irregular bowel movements and having pains in his legs. So my partner visited the GP numerous times, GP taking varies blood samples and nothing came from it.... so after a few more visits to the GP and A&E, my partner was finally admitted to hospital, after a few tests and scans, my partner was diagnosed with stage 4 Bowel cancer in Oct 2014. All the symptoms of Bowel cancer started a few months before diagnosis. After a few months after a procedure to remove the primary cancer, my partner started chemo to help reduce or stop the spread of the cancer. Unfortunately my partner passed away in June 2015. As the cancer was very aggressive after chemo have finished, the chemo was used to give my partner the best quality of life. And extend my partner life for 8/9 months. If the GP recognised the symptoms earlier, my partner would had a greater chance of survival. But our GP just ignored it.. I feel disappointed and shocked that his happened and I don't want to see this happening to another else. So we need to persuade the NHS to reduce the age of the free screening test to ANY age and for over 60's. Thank you for reading why this is important to me. Keendy Chan

This October we urge women and men to join us in removing the pink ribbon blindfold and in asking Breast Cancer Charities to do the same. Why, despite all the money raised, are more and more of us are getting this disease? Is it possible that we’re not being given the full picture on the breast cancer epidemic that has taken us from 1 in 12 chance of a woman getting the disease in her lifetime in 1995 to a 1 in 8 chance today? Why are Breast Cancer Charities refusing to acknowledge the environmental and occupational risk factors for breast cancer, when the evidence is already out there? ALL women need and deserve a full understanding of ALL potential risk factors for the disease that threatens women’s lives and health. Now is the time to question why Breast Cancer Charities continue to focus solely on ‘lifestyle’ risk factors such as diet and exercise, while ignoring the potential 60% of breast cancer cases for which they have no explanation. What about the role of chemical, environmental and occupational exposures in this? Why, when the World Health Organisation states that prevention (which is not the same as early detection) offers the most cost-effective long-term strategy for the control of cancer, do we not see this reflected in our cancer plans and strategies? Why is primary prevention (stopping the disease before it starts) not equally addressed along with better treatment and care? Why are those with the power to influence decisions on breast cancer policy not acting on what we already know? Join us this October in removing the pink ribbon blindfold and asking the Breast Cancer Charities the Big Question: WHY they persist in refusing to acknowledge the role of environmental and occupational toxins by ignoring decades of evidence up to the present day on the link between our lifelong (womb to grave) exposures to toxins and the escalating incidence of breast cancer? Actions: There are various actions you can take: 1. Join us in removing the pink ribbon blindfold on the 1st of October for the social media launch of our campaign. Do your own action in a group or individually - take a photo removing the blindfold and share on your Facebook page or via social media twitter - @pink_prevention Instagram - pink_to_prevention Flickr group - From Pink to Prevention. 2. Sign our petition, and share widely. 3. Get your organisation to sign up to our statement - www.frompinktoprevention.org 4. Write to your Breast Cancer Charity to ask them the big question. Please send us a copy of their response. See a sample letter on our website. www.frompinktoprevention.org 5. Visit our Facebook page for poster to share: https://www.facebook.com/FromPinktoPrevention 6. World Health Organisation Asturias Declaration: http://www.who.int/phe/news/events/international_conference/Call_for_action_en.pdf 7. For more information on the evidence linking breast cancer and environmental and occupational risk factors: http://www.frompinktoprevention.org/resources/scientific-evidence/ 8. Pink Ribbon Blindfold picture Copyright to Mark Chilvers, thank you to Unison for the use of the picture. Concept by Helen Lynn.

Oxfordshire County Council is proposing to shut down all 44 of the County’s Children’s Centres, and halve the current Early Years budget of £16m. Instead the council will replace them with just eight Children and Family Centres, which would only be accessible to the most vulnerable by referral. Our well used and much loved centres in communities across Oxfordshire currently provide a wide range of early intervention support including parenting courses, support for postnatal depression and mental health, young parent groups, breastfeeding support, mobile libraries, maths and English classes for adults, midwife support, baby groups, health visitor drop-in clinics, Freedom programmes for victims of domestic abuse and much more. If current proposals go ahead, most of this support would either disappear entirely or only be available to families who are already in difficulties. An end to universal provision of support for families of under-fives will only increase the stigma associated with seeking out help, and may put people off using these essential services at a time when they feel vulnerable and isolated. It is a false economy to close Children’s Centres. Universal access to the early intervention services they provide has numerous economic and other long-term benefits for the health and wellbeing of parents, children and the wider community. The cuts will result in a higher workload for other health professionals (health visitors, GPs), higher future costs and an increased risk of postnatal difficulties (breastfeeding difficulties, postnatal depression) with potentially serious and long-term consequences for parents and babies. We have started a community-led campaign asking the council to reconsider these plans urgently. The children’s centres are well regarded, well established and their staff are highly experienced professionals. Many families across Oxfordshire can and do readily access support at a time when they need it most. The testimonies of families who have used the centres make it clear how much of a lifeline they are. Together, we must protect them.

Many elderly and disabled people are struggling to exist on the money they receive in pensions or allowances, they can ill afford the astronomical cost of their medication. Young people should be aware of the fact that British pensions are the third lowest in the EEU. Educating our young people is essential for the future of mankind and we should encourage them, not hang a millstone round their necks in the form of student loans. Lastly, we have an ever increasing number of elderly, sick and disabled people who require medical care. Many of these people come from a generation who suffered through the horrors of the second world war and then worked hard to rebuild this. great country of ours and who saved and invested for their retirement. Their reward for this is to be forced to spend those savings to pay for care, which they thought would be payed for by the National Insurance contributions they made during their working lives. It,s important that people are aware of what is happening, the government should be stopped from stealing their money and made to give these people some decent Quality of Life.

This drug is the only drug to be added for Hodgkin's Lymphoma for over 40 years. It has a proven efficacy and helps save lives of the young people affected by Hodgkin's Lymphoma who have failed primary, harsh chemotherapy. It was the only drug which got our daughter into remission after 7 years of ever-increasing toxicity. It opened the window she needed to get through a donor bone marrow transplant, and she is now well after 10 years struggling against this cancer. This blood cancer typically attacks young people, in their teens and twenties, who if saved, will go on to pay the taxes this country needs to survive!

The sick and infirm are going without care because they can't afford it due to the fact that, during their WORKING lives, they saved for their retirement. These same people are paying through the nose for their medication whilst trying to exist off the meagre pension the government gives them, currently the third worst pension in the EEU. Students worry about hanging a millstone around their necks in the form of student loans. There are thousands of overseas students attending UK universities, why not charge them a little more to subsidise our students. They are our future and should be fully supported.

On Friday 4th of September 2015 the National Cancer Drug Fund announced it was withdrawing life-saving drugs for patients suffering from blood cancer by the 1st of November.  Patients with myeloma, chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, Hodgkin's Lymphoma and chronic myeloid leukaemia are particularly affected.  Many of these drugs don't just prolong life by a few months. They actually have a very significant impact on overall life expectancy and also on quality of life and are part of routine care in many European countries and the United States.  Without access to these drugs, we cannot deliver on personalised medicine, a concept that is now widely accepted in the NHS. We also believe that the decision making process about cancer drugs that are available needs to change so that it includes specialists for each disease area to weigh up the clinical benefits and associated costs for these treatments. For further INFO: http://www.england.nhs.uk/ourwork/pe/cdf/cdf-drug-sum/

Our government has decided to act on the current 'migrant' crisis which is due to people power through petitioning/campaigning, putting pressure on unwilling politicians to take the necessary action and provide these people with support they desperately need. I am so proud of the people of Britain for standing up and making themselves un-ignorable in this situation. HOWEVER, This won’t come without great cost to Britain, where will the money come from to accommodate these terribly unfortunate people? We still have growing numbers of homeless on our streets, our NHS is still suffering and many are still unemployed. Usually to cover the cost the government would issue welfare reform (cuts) and/or raise taxes. We've been on that merry-go-round for far too long and it only adds to poverty and suffering. THIS DOES NOT HAVE TO HAPPEN! If we look to America, in states where marijuana produce has been legalised (Colorado etc), they are metaphorically swimming in cash, with thousands of new jobs, a whole new multi-million dollar industry re-introduced into their society and we can have that too! Since Colorado became the first state in the US to allow people to trade marijuana-produce legally, from January 2014 the state took in $53 million in tax revenue in its first year!. That’s just one state. Imagine the money that could be raised in the UK, imagine what help that could do, a whole bunch of surplus cash from an inexpensive plant that grows in dirt.. The demand is definitely there for cannabis based goods, so why not end prohibition? Use the funds we make through taxation of cannabis-produce to help wherever we can, to provide opportunity wherever we can. OUR HOMELESS CAN BE HOUSED, THE UNEMPLOYED CAN RECEIVE TRAINING AND BECOME EMPLOYED, WE CAN ACCOMODATE DISPLACED 'MIGRANTS' OUR NHS CAN RECIEVE THE FUNDING AND SUPPORT IT NEEDS, WE CAN CREATE MORE JOBS, MORE INDUSTRY. WE CAN GROW, WE CAN PROSPER, TOGETHER! P.s A petition for cannabis legalisation was considered not long ago by our government, after receiving over 200,000 signatures, the response from government wasn't that which we'd hope for. you can see the governments’ response here: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/104349 <<(please also sign&share)<< Lets not take no for an answer. Lets remind them of the good this reform would do for our country and our people and those fleeing war-torn countries The benefits legalisation are too good to ignore, It’s time for change! PLEASE SEE THE GOOD IN THIS AND SIGN. THANK YOU SO MUCH

Because we are fellow human beings, that's all. This is something we can really help with. We have a moral duty, and its time we did something human for our fellow humans. Aylan, the toddler who drowned fleeing Syria, was just three years old. His town was under attack by Isis. His five year old brother and his mum also died trying to reach safety. Yet our prime minister said ‘we won't take any more refugees’. He thinks that most of us don't care. But 38 Degrees members do care. We don't want Britain to be the kind of country that turns its back as people drown in their desperation to flee places like Syria. So let's stand up for Britain's long tradition of helping refugees fleeing war. Let's show the Prime Minister that we, the people of the UK, are proud to do our part and provide refuge to people in their hour of need. Please sign and share, or start your own petition for your town or city here: https://you.38degrees.org.uk/efforts/refugees-welcome