Alison Fielding

Vice President (Patient focus)

Alison has dilated cardiomyopathy and kidney cancer. After a career in IT sales and service, she now spends her time working as a trustee and patient advocate. She has worked extensively with Cancer Research UK including being a member of their national Cancer Insights Panel for 2 terms, she is a member of their internal strategy board on treatment access, a speaker at events and undertakes various research and campaign opportunities. She received a commendation in their Sharp Mind award in 2018 for her contribution to their work. She is also active in the Kidney Cancer Support Network and as part of this has represented patients at NICE Technology Appraisals for new drug approvals. In a rare opportunity for a patient, she was invited to present to the European Medicine Agency regarding a first in class marketing licence for a cancer treatment. A previous decision was over turned and the treatment is now standard therapy for patients across Europe. She is interested in promoting research focussed on patient priorities and sits as a consumer member of the National Cancer Research Institute. This involves being a panel member on the Consumer Forum which directs patient involvement opportunities across all cancers. This group offers a consultative sounding board or ‘’Dragon’s Den” to researchers at the development stage of proposals. She is also a member of the Bladder and Renal Clinical Studies Group which oversees a research portfolio across the UK. As part of this, the patient/consumer team undertook their own research into what was important to patients and made recommendations for incorporating this into research projects. She is a co-author on a published paper in a European academic journal and is a member of several clinical trial management groups. Alison has represented cardiac patients at various for a from meeting with regional teams to discuss service design of Inherited Cardiac services to discussing heart failure at Parliamentary level.