A RINGWOOD dad with incurable cancer has taken his fight for greater awareness and access to specialist services to Parliament.

Father-of-two Ronny Allan, 59, from Ringwood has been fighting neuroendocrine cancer since 2010.

The defiant former soldier is determined not to let the “silent disease” beat him.

And since quitting work from MoD firm Selex ES, Mr Allan has become the ambassador of Cancer Research UK for New Forest West, raised £4,000 after walking the length of Hadrian’s Wall for the pancreatic, liver and neuroendocrine cancer charity Planets and has taken his fight to the House of Commons.

Mr Allan along with 25 MPs including the Minister of International Development and New Forest West MP Desmond Swayne, Vince Cable and Peter Hain has helped generate awareness with the hope to secure more funding on this “silent killer”.

Mr Allan said: “I represented the Neuroendocrine Tumour Patient Foundation (NET) and lobbied for greater awareness of the disease and access to specialist services. “This is part of the annual effort to raise awareness and seek greater recognition of this rare and sometimes incurable disease.

“Our campaign at Parliament has already done an enormous amount of good. We have had a bunch of MPs who are going to take up our case to their constituencies and to help secure more funding from the clinical commissioning groups. I am one of many patient advocates and I have been writing an awareness blog which has attracted 10,000 views worldwide in six months." 

Mr Allan's diagnosis was accidentally discovered following a routine visit to the asthma clinic, when he told the nurse he had lost some weight without trying.

But it wasn’t until Mr Allan mentioned that he had a type of hot facial flushing that neuroendocrine cancer was suspected.

Neuroendocrine cancer affects about two people per 100,000 and can easily be mis-diagnosed as irritable bowel syndrome or similar.

Mr Allan added: “Nobody really knows how long a person with this cancer will live because of the complexities of the disease and the need for tailored treatment.”