During her speech at the NHS Confed Expo conference in Liverpool today, the NHS Chief Executive Amanda Pritchard stated that “The NHS will not rest in our efforts to catch cancer early and save more lives.” In addition, she mentioned a number of initiatives the NHS are launching in the coming months to try to accelerate progress on diagnosing more cancers at an earlier stage.
Specifically, she announced an exciting project, working with the Jewish community to offer genetic testing for BRCA gene mutations. People with Jewish heritage are at higher risk of these mutations, with up to 1 in 40 people affected, compared with 1 in 400 in the general population.
The programme will ensure people found to have a BRCA mutation will have the opportunity to be enrolled onto appropriate surveillance and treatment pathways and of course given ongoing support, with the aim of diagnosing more cancers at an early stage or indeed preventing them altogether, ultimately saving lives.
“Jnetics are working closely with NHS England and other community stakeholders to ensure the programme is responsible, effective and sensitive to the wider Jewish communities” Nicole Gordon, CEO explained
“The project is still at an early stage, but as the leading community organisation in the prevention management and diagnosis of Jewish genetic disorders we are proud to be working on such an innovative and important project.
Following today’s announcement should anybody within the community have any queries relating to this please reach out to the Jnetics team, we are here to support our community when navigating Jewish genetic disorders” Nicole concluded.
