Yes to Life Annual Conference 2017

Conventional cancer treatment? Or lifestyle options such as nutritional approaches? A critical question asked by so many cancer patients urgently wanting to know what could be best for them. Yes to Life believes the answer for many people is to understand and combine the best of both, the integrative medicine approach.

Our conference – ‘Starting the conversation’ – featured leading practitioners working within the NHS, alongside those working with lifestyle medicine approaches. All the speakers share the same vision – working together to improve patient outcomes using Integrative Medicine.

The context for our Conference
Despite the best intentions of successive UK governments, little progress has been made in developing genuinely patient-centred care, notably in cancer. The emphasis is still on proscriptive ‘standard of care’ treatment, despite a growing bank of evidence for the many benefits that lifestyle methods can offer. The landscape is very different elsewhere. There have been impressive steps towards integration in other countries such as the US and across continental Europe. Here in the UK, the gulf seems as wide as ever.

What can we do to bring the changes to public healthcare for which the disillusioned public is increasingly turning elsewhere?

The first step must be to establish a dialogue. We must begin talking about combining forces to make some genuine progress in turning the tide of cancer in the UK and in improving the poor experience of mainstream cancer care. We must begin talking about integration as the route to both patient-centred care and patient choice.

Our speakers include:

• Professor Robert Thomas – Oncologist and author of Lifestyle after Cancer
• Dr Rupy Aujla – GP and founder of The Doctor’s Kitchen
• Dr Malcolm Kendrick – GP and author of The Great Cholesterol Con
• Dr Rangan Chatterjee – GP, BBC’s ‘Doctor in the House’ (exclusive video created for this event)
• Sophie Sabbage – Author of the bestselling book ‘The Cancer Whisperer’ and a cancer survivor
• Robert Verkerk BSc, MSc PhD FACN, Executive and Scientific Director of the Alliance for Natural Health
• Lizzy Davis, Founder of CanExercise and Hayley Osborn and Venetia Wynter-Blyth – a dynamic team at
• ICH who run a programme – PREPARE for surgery. They focus on getting fit with exercise, nutrition and respiratory exercise pre-surgery, leading the way in pre-habilitation.
• Claudia Manchanda – Medical Herbalist
• Liz Butler – Founder of Body, Soul, Nutrition. A nutritionist specialising in supporting people with cancer
• Dr Catherine Zollman – Lead Doctor at Penny Brohn Cancer Care
• Dr Damien Downing – Integrative Doctor and pioneer of Ecological Medicine. Founder member of the
• British Society for Integrative Oncology
• Justin Price – Regenerus Testing
• Mark Boscher – (Herts MS Therapy Centre) – Hyperbaric Oxygen support