Advisory Board

The Advisory Board of the Wales Cancer Bank (WCB) superseded a Steering group which was originally convened to oversee the initial establishment of the project and this stakeholder group was instrumental in guiding the Cancer Bank through its initial year of existence. The Steering group consisted of representatives from the National Assembly for Wales, Office of Research and Development (WORD), consultant pathologists, professors of clinical and medical oncology, patient and community health council bodies, the commercially successful Wales Cancer Trials Network and members of the WCB executive group and sub-groups

The Advisory Board is responsible for ensuring that the WCB complies with NHS governance on ethical and clinical issues and that all relevant legislation is recognised and adhered to, as well as considering the strategic operation of the bank.  It receives reports from the sub-groups, it direct operations and reports to the Welsh Assembly Government.

It was recognised that a board made up of a wider spectrum of expertise, to include a majority of members external to Wales, would allow greater transparency and give a wider UK perspective.  A number of stakeholder groups were identified and approached for representation, including the WCB funders, the NHS in Wales and the Cancer Services Co-ordinating group in Wales.  The newly constituted group met for the first time in January 2008 in the Royal Society in London.  Mr Calum Campbell, (then) acting Chief Executive of Swansea NHS Trust was voted as Chair with Mr Nick Ross, lay representative, voted as Deputy Chair. 

Full membership of the new Advisory Board and their affiliations are detailed below


Sub-groups

IT group Chair – Professor Gerry Thomas. Responsible for coordinating the central database system in conjunction with the Database Manager and liaison with existing information services groups with the aim to fully integrate the Cancer Bank database on an all Wales basis.

Sampling group Chair – Professor David Wynford-Thomas. Consists of pathologists and technical staff and was initially responsible for the collation of sample collection protocols and standard operating procedures.

Ethics and Patient liaison group Chair – Mr Neil Formstone. Consists of representatives from patient groups across Wales and advised on patient information sheets and consent forms compilation. The group will continually monitor patient involvement and advise on recruitment procedures from the patient's perspective.

Collection Management group Chair – Dr Alison Parry-Jones. Consists of the IT Manager and the nurses and technicians employed in local hospitals. All aspects of the day to day collection are monitored and this group helps to foster team collaboration as the project is geographically spread across Wales.


The Wales Cancer Institute

The Wales Cancer Institute was launched in January 2005 to harness the existing cancer research groups around Wales to create a virtual cancer research institute. Cancer is still one of the biggest killers in Wales. It is vital that we get the new research in laboratories to the patient clinics ("from bench to bedside") to provide new and more effective treatments for cancer patients. This can only be achieved by partnership between the relevant organisations.

Bringing together researchers, charities, clinicians, universities and government organisations from all over the principality and co-ordinating the scientific work of the cancer community will then stimulate investment into cancer research in Wales from the main cancer funders in the UK. This will then enable researchers and clinicians to work on new drugs and turn this work into new treatments for patients.

For further information please contact Julia Price at Cardiff University on 029 2068 2102, pricejm@cf.ac.uk

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