‘Tea with Your MP’ — Macmillan Cancer Support’s ‘Lobby Days’ for the Virtual World
In order to create lasting change, it’s vital MPs hear first-hand what it is like to live with cancer during the coronavirus pandemic. Between June and August, thanks to our fabulous campaigners, we’ve been able to do exactly that.
Campaign to stop cancer becoming the forgotten ‘c’
Coronavirus doesn’t care about cancer. That’s why over the past few months we’ve been campaigning to stop cancer becoming the forgotten ‘c’ during the pandemic. We’ve been working with MPs to brief them on the issues and to help them raise the concerns of their constituents in Parliament. Hundreds of people participated in our survey on cancer and coronavirus and a staggering 2,000+ campaigners wrote to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Matt Hancock, taking our calls straight to the top in England. And with huge success too! In July, we met with the Secretary of State, and with the Minister responsible for Cancer, Jo Churchill, where we discussed the urgent need for a national recovery plan to address the backlog of care and protect cancer support and services in the future.
Our ‘Tea with Your MP’ virtual ‘lobby days’ played a significant part in ensuring that our message reached those who needed to hear it. This engagement tool facilitated important and emotional conversations with MPs, and helped to establish potentially meaningful relationships between our campaigners and their constituency MP.
What are ‘lobby days’?
In a pre-coronavirus world, as part of an influencing strategy to engage with Parliamentarians, Macmillan would organise ‘lobby days’ where we would invite people living with cancer into Parliament and arrange for them to meet with their constituency MP in order to share their stories, and help MPs to connect to the heart of the matter. Due to coronavirus, this type of event isn’t possible anymore, so we brought ‘lobby days’ to the virtual world, as there has never been a more critical time for MPs to hear about the experiences of people with cancer in their constituency.
To organise this ‘virtual lobby’, we reached out to our wonderful campaigner network and asked who would like to meet with their MP. When these campaigners responded, we got in touch with their MP on their behalf and set up the video call, which would be supported by a member of the Public Affairs team.
Getting started
We kicked off our ‘virtual lobby’ by trying to create the sense of an occasion ahead of the ‘Tea with Your MP’ meetings. 15 of our campaigners were brought together with Macmillan Cancer Support CEO, Lynda Thomas. This was an opportunity for Lynda to thank them for giving up their time to share their stories. It also gave us a chance to explain what MP meetings are like and for people to ask questions.
To coincide with the start of the ‘virtual lobby’, we hosted a Twitter conversation about cancer and coronavirus on our @Mac_Campaigning twitter account. On Wednesday 24th June we created a space for discussion around cancer and coronavirus, where people living with cancer, those supporting them, MPs, cancer charities and other stakeholders joined our twitter conversation. We asked people to use #TheForgottenC so the conversation was easy for everyone to follow and search. We heard from people at different stages in their cancer journeys about how coronavirus has affected their treatment, needs and overall quality of life:
“I feel forgotten by this government.”
“The longer I’ve had to shield, the harder it’s got.”
This hugely successful social media moment set the tone for the many ‘Tea with Your MP’ meetings ahead, and directly engaged our wider campaigner base in the activities of the campaign.
‘Tea with Your MP’
From June to August, we facilitated 12 meetings between campaigners and their MPs from across England, including 2 Government Ministers. There were 2 additional group meetings between campaigners and the Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Cancer, Tonia Antoniazzi MP, and Lord Fox, who graciously co-sponsored our Parliamentary cancer workforce event in January.
This provided campaigners with the opportunity to connect with Parliamentarians to ensure they better understand the challenges people living with cancer are facing during the pandemic and beyond. Some of the issues raised in these meetings ranged from:
- Lack of communication from Government regarding shielding.
- Lack of communication from hospitals regarding treatment.
- Ending of local support groups during the pandemic.
- Concerns that treatment being delayed will mean a shorter life expectancy.
- Concerns about the delay in receiving their diagnosis and that coronavirus will lead to further missed opportunities to diagnose cancer early.
In all meetings, the MPs were responsive to stopping cancer becoming the forgotten ‘c’, and led to some MPs writing on behalf of their constituent to ensure that they were getting support from their local hospital.
This model of ‘virtual lobby’ meetings is being replicated by Macmillan across the nations of the United Kingdom, to ensure that the voices of people affected by cancer are being amplified across the country and that all UK Governments urgently publish recovery plans for cancer services.
Emma Stevenson is Public Affairs Assistant at Macmillan Cancer Support. You can find out more about the work we do in Parliament here.
