ECPC provides a forum for European cancer patient groups to share best practice and skills.  The advocacy toolbox section is designed to provide helpful resources for cancer patient advocates and organisations.  We welcome information about your experiences in your countries and hope to build a resource library which will help us to run our organisations more effectively and to campaign more successfully to improve the survival and quality of life of cancer patients across Europe. Please let us know what would help your organisation in your country.

EU Policy Handbook

The aim of this 30-page toolbox document is to provide ECPC members with a broad introduction of EU cancer policy, legislative procedures and measures. Read about the EU Policy Handbook here.

Building Good Patient Group Websites

The internet is one of the most important communication tools in healthcare today. ECPC has built a guide on how to design and set up a websites for patient organisation. See our ECPC guide how to build patient-friendly websites

Organising a cancer patient conference

ECPC has organized and run 3 "Masterclasses on Patient Advocacy" in Milan and 4 high level Summits in Warsaw, Slovenia and Brussels whilst also attending major cancer patient summits in Europe and beyond. ECPC aims to share this expertise with its members and provides the 'ECPC Step by Step Guide to organizing a conference or patient summit'. Read more about our conference toolbox here.

Campaign for Patients' Rights

We would welcome your initiative that campaign for patients’ rights. See our page on patients' rights where we provide information about the different Charters of Patients' Rights, as well as ECPC's amendments highlighting specific needs of Cancer patients.

Clinical Trials -- Campaign for better Patient Information

Patient empowerment means that patients have the right to make their own choices about their health care. Optimal health demands empowerment and thus an informed patient! ECPC has called for a consensus in support of a comprehensive approach for a public registration and reporting of Clinical Trials. See our summary on Clinical Trials (Access to information), and some help how to campaign for more transparency.

Using Declarations and Guidelines as a Political Tool

Declarations can be a powerful tool for patient groups to influence the political agenda, or to call on stakeholder groups to cooperate on a certain goal. For example, ECPC, together with other national and European patient organisations, has played a major role in setting up the Warsaw Declaration. It  was co-signed in 2005 by more than 140 cancer advocates, calling on policy makers, politicians and key stakeholders. Some examples of declarations:

• Warsaw Declaration (signed at the 2nd CEE cancer patients advocacy summit, co-organized by ECPC)
• World Cancer Declaration (endorsed by the World Cancer Congress 2008)
• International declaration by the global GIST community, developed, agreed and signed by representatives of worldwide GIST Patient Advocacy Groups in July 2007.
• Baveno CML Declaration, signed by more than 50 leukemia patient groups worldwide in June 2008.

EU Election 2009 Toolbox -- You have the power to vote!

At election times candidates are looking for a platform and a profile with their voters. Being a coalition of more than 270 cancer patient organisations, ECPC has provided a toolbox to help its member organisations in their election campaigns. The toolbox contains the "ECPC Guide to the 2009 European Parliament elections", template letters and the "ECPC Manifesto against Cancer", a draft press release and a draft newsflash. See more here.

Please let us know your suggestions for additional topics we should cover in this "ECPC Toolbox". We look forward to receiving your email to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .