Wear It Pink – our political events for 2026
This autumn, we held Wear It Pink events in Holyrood, Westminster and the Senedd to mark breast cancer awareness month. And we were busy in Northern Ireland too, attending a number of other events.
Hundreds of politicians from across the UK got involved by wearing it pink, hearing about our work, and encouraging others to take part in Wear It Pink by sharing on their channels.
In this blog, you can read a quick review of what we got up to in each nation, and what comes next.
Wales
Our first event was in Wales, as Matthew Jones MS sponsored our event in the Senedd in September.
We were joined by more than a third of MSs from all political parties across the Senedd, where they heard from our team how they can help to shape the new Welsh Cancer Strategy, which will be launched in February 2027.
Our main asks centred around the priorities set out in our ‘Wales Demands Change’ report, such as quicker and earlier diagnosis, improvements to data collection on metastatic breast cancer and ensuring more people attend their breast screening appointments when invited.
We also spoke to MSs about some of the life-changing services and research we’re funding across Wales, and further opportunities to support our work.
The upcoming cancer strategy is now being drafted, so we’ll continue to follow-up with the MSs we spoke to as it develops.
Scotland
In Scotland, over half of the parliament attended our Wear It Pink event and photocall in Holyrood, including a return visit from First Minister John Swinney and a couple of health ministers.
Scotland will be publishing the next 3-year Cancer Action Plan for Scotland which will outline the actions to achieve its own 10 year Cancer Strategy 2023-2033. To make it as impactful as possible, we spoke to MSPs about how they could help ensure it includes recommendations from our 'Scotland Demands Change' report.
At the event, they also got to hear from 8 incredible patient advocates, who spoke about the importance of metastatic breast cancer data collection and improved access to medicines.
One of those women was Margaret, who said:
It was great to join a small group of ‘secondary sisters’ in the Scottish Parliament to help raise awareness with MSPs of our lives with secondary incurable breast cancer. It was impressive to have such direct contact with our government and decision makers. All the MSPs we talked with listened sensitively and many were horrified to learn we’re not counted until we die - meaning support services, drugs, hospice places cannot be properly provided without more accurate data. I’m hopeful our voices will be truly heard, and effective action will be the result.
The day also ended with a debate on breast cancer in honour of the late Christina McKelvie MSP, who sadly died from the disease in March last year.
The debate was very well attended with 10 MSPs making powerful contributions. Here, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care Angela Constance confirmed that for the first time, the Scottish government had agreed a method for collecting metastatic breast cancer data.
This marks a major breakthrough for our campaign, and that they are on track to meet the commitment to collect metastatic breast cancer data by the end of 2027.
She confirmed that rapid planning is underway to secure access to genomic testing for new, recently approved, metastatic breast cancer drugs.
Westminster
Our final Wear It Pink event was held in Westminster, where we brought together almost 170 MPs and peers for our annual drop-in.
Attendees included the Minister for Women’s Health, the Minister for Health and Patient Safety, the Minister for Secondary Care, the Minister with Responsibilities for Patient Safety, and the Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Damian Hinds.
In February, the government published the National Cancer Plan for England and a landmark commitment to count and publish recurrent cancers, starting with metastatic breast cancer, by the end of 2026. Our focus for the year was to make sure that these commitments deliver as much as possible for people affected by breast cancer.
To help these points land as powerfully as possible and help MPs learn more about metastatic breast cancer collection from those who are most personally affected, we invited patient advocates Claire, Lee and Breast Cancer Now podcast host Laura Price to join us at the event, alongside Bal who spoke about her experiences with early diagnosis and screening.
Lee shares her thoughts on the day below:
The Wear It Pink event gave me a brilliant opportunity to speak candidly with ministers about the realities of living with metastatic breast cancer. They asked me about the hardships as well as the advancement of treatments and the hopes that I have for the future. We spoke about the need for more funding to make this become a chronic disease; one that women are no longer terrified of getting.
But that’s not all: Wear It Pink also made its way directly to the House of Commons too. It was great to see the chamber filled with so much pink as MPs showed their support for breast cancer.
Northern Ireland
In Northern Ireland, we marked Breast Cancer Awareness Month by taking part in a number of events with politicians and health leaders alike.
This included a visit from Dr Simon Vincent, our chief scientific officer, to Queen’s University Belfast for breast cancer information day, where he gave a presentation on the research we fund and the impact it has on people diagnosed with breast cancer.
We also shared our priorities with politicians at NICON, a health and social care conference in Belfast for health and social care leaders. We engaged directly with the Northern Ireland health committee, too, briefing them on the key challenges impacting the breast cancer pathway in Northern Ireland.
Alongside these activities, we also worked closely with Health Minister Robbie Butler’s team, as he shared our "touch, look and check" message in a video on channels across social media.
Thanks so much again to everyone who got in touch with their politicians and for making all our events such huge successes!
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