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Articles in Cancer

A caucasian woman wearing a red blouse and white headscarf looking gravely into the camera, against a neutral grey background

Covid & Cancer

September 26, 2025September 26, 2025 Ben Clark

There is now compelling medical evidence that Covid-19 infections can reactivate dormant cancer cells, and trigger the growth of secondary cancers (metastatic progression). In studies, cancer survivors who contracted Covid had a statistically significant higher risk of cancer-related deaths compared to uninfected cancer survivors.

This is such an important issue that BuDS has decided to run an awareness campaign over the autumn and winter. The aim of the campaign will be to warn cancer survivors of the very real additional danger that Covid poses to them.

We have worked hard to give you accurate information. However, you should always speak to your own GP, oncologist, or cancer clinic to get personal medical advice. We are not doctors, and we cannot give you medical advice.

Heat Exhaustion & Heatstroke

June 17, 2025June 27, 2025 Ben Clark

The following information about heat exhaustion and heatstroke is taken from official NHS advice. It is designed to help people provide first aid to older and disabled people during the heatwave, because there is likely to be a very long delay before an ambulance or healthcare professional can reach you. This is only general advice, and you should follow any specific advice given to you by a healthcare professional.

Heatwave Tips and Advice

June 17, 2025June 17, 2025 Andrew

Here is some advice and tips about coping during a heatwave. This advice has been written specifically for disabled people, but will work for everyone.

The Palace of Westminster and Portcullis House (MPs offices) seen from across the River Thames, silhouetted against a stormy sky.

Find Your MP

June 14, 2025June 14, 2025 Ben Clark

We encourage disabled people and their families/carers to keep in touch with their local constituency MP. There are many key issues affecting disabled people at the minute, such as the proposed benefit cuts, the changes to the NHS and social care, and, of course, the Assisted Dying Bill currently going through Parliament. It is really important that constituency MPs know how disabled people feel about these changes. Disabled people make up about a fifth of all voters in the UK, so our opinions matter.

The table below gives you the names, constituencies, and websites of MPs in and around Buckinghamshire. The button below the table will take you to the Parliament website, where you can find details of your MP if they are not listed.

If you would like any help contacting your MP, or would like BuDS to get involved in anything that matters to you, please use the contact form at the end of this page.

A screenshot of the title of the assisted suicide bill, reading "A BILL TO Allow adults who are terminally ill, subject to safeguards and protections, to request and be provided with assistance to end their own life; and for connected purposes. B E IT ENACTED by the King’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—". Image Crown Copyright

The Assisted Suicide Bill – What Does It Really Say?

November 27, 2024November 27, 2024 Ben Clark

BuDS has independently analysed the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill due to be debated by MPs on Friday 29^th November. Our analysis is below.

The official portrait of Sir Lindsay Hoyle. He is an older white man with grey hair looking at the camera. He is wearing an 18th Century wing collar and black jacket. Image ©House of Commons/Roger Harris

BuDS Asks Speaker of the Commons To Clarify Assisted Dying Bill

October 26, 2024October 26, 2024 Ben Clark

BuDS has written to Sir Lindsay Hoyle MP, Speaker of the House of Commons, to ask him to use his powers to clarify the title of Kim Leadbeater’s Assisted Dying Bill. We feel the present title is misleading and argumentative, in breach of Parliamentary rules.

An image of Kim Leadbeater MP standing next to a canal, leaning on a white railing. She is a small blonde white woman, and is smiling at the camera. Image copyright Kim Leadbeater MP

BuDS Calls On Kim Leadbeater MP To Withdraw Assisted Dying Bill

October 26, 2024October 26, 2024 Ben Clark

BuDS, a user-led disability charity which advocates for disability rights, has called on Kim Leadbeater MP to withdraw her Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill to allow the establishment of a Royal Commission or similar to look into all the issues around assisted suicide, to be followed by a Government Bill based on the Commission’s recommendations.

An image of the House of Commons, with the Elixabeth Tower (also known as Big Ben) in the background.

Assisted Suicide Bill: What Do the Titles Tell Us?

October 24, 2024October 25, 2024 Ben Clark

Kim Leadbeater MP has tabled a Private Members Bill in the House of Commons concerning assisted suicide. The text of the Bill has not been published so all we know about it so far is the short and long titles as set out on the House of Commons website^[1]. What do they tell us?

A group of disabled people sitting and standing together at a bench in a park. The person on the far left of the image is seated in a wheelchair.

BuDS Response to Tom Shakespeare’s Letter Supporting Assisted Suicide

October 24, 2024October 24, 2024 Ben Clark

The disabled author and broadcaster Tom Shakespeare, and some of his colleagues, have written to MPs supporting the legalisation of assisted suicide. You can read more about their letter below.

BuDS has always recognised that disabled people, like people everywhere, have different views about assisted suicide. Tom Shakespeare and his colleagues are certainly entitled to theirs. However, every disabled-led organisation in the UK has come out against assisted suicide and, in our own experience as a large network of ordinary disabled people with all types of impairment and condition, it is only a small minority of disabled people who support assisted suicide.

The very fact that there is public argument about what ‘disabled people think’ underlies the need for this frenzied rush to legalise assisted suicide to be paused to allow proper research and analysis. It is extraordinary that Parliament is being asked to make a far-reaching change in the criminal law without there having been any proper consultation with dying people, disabled people, hospices, family lawyers, the judiciary or the medical profession.

BuDS has called for a Royal Commission to be convened to consider whether assisted suicide should be legalised. Such a Commission could examine international practice, properly consult interested parties, analyse the form of any law change, and bring forward properly researched recommendations based on evidence, not slogans and emotion. Tom Shakespeare’s letter underlines the critical need for such a wide-ranging study before the law is changed.

An elderly man lies in a hospital bed. He is gazing wistfully out of a window, and holding a mug in his hands.

Assisted Suicide: Five Hours Is Not Long Enough

October 21, 2024August 28, 2025 Ben Clark

Kim Leadbeater MP has introduced a Private Members Bill (PMB) to legalise the medical killing of patients in certain circumstances. BuDS has once again called on Ms Leadbeater to withdraw her bill to allow time for a Royal Commission to be set up to thoroughly explore the issue of Assisted Dying and make evidence-based recommendations for a change in the law. We think dying people deserve nothing less.