brainstrust events

Our Thrive with brainstrust events will help you live better with a brain tumour. Below you can find information about upcoming webinars and meetups, both online and face-to-face. Filter by Patient and Carer events to see what’s happening this month. If you have any questions about our supportive events or would like to book a coaching session, please email hello@brainstrust.org.uk

You can also browse our calendar of upcoming fundraising events and campaigns. For the latest information about races and challenges, please keep in contact with event organisers or email fundraising@brainstrust.org.uk

Running events by region – brainstrust would love you to support the charity by taking on a challenge for us.  See what events are available in your region and do something amazing today!

Running Events with Realbuzz – through brainstrust’s partnership with Realbuzz, our runners now have the opportunity to take on some of the biggest events Globally  and in the UK including the Superhalfs series & the Abbott World Marathon Majors.  Places in these events are hard to come by so check out the list below and get registered.
  • All Events
  • Fundraising Events
  • Patient & Carer Events
October 7th, 2025

Tea and a wee blether – Tues Oct 7th at 12.00

Join our monthly online cuppa and chat. A safe, welcoming space for anyone affected by a brain tumour.  

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October 8th, 2025

Living with Metastatic brain cancer? – Weds 8th Oct 3.00pm

Living with metastatic brain cancer? Welcome to our online event where we come together to share stories, offer support, and provide resources for those living with metastatic brain cancer. Join us for informative discussions, Q&A sessions with experts, and connect with others who understand what you’re going through. Whether you’re a patient or a caregiver, […]

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October 9th, 2025

Focus group Late effects RT – Thurs Oct 9th 2.00pm

Had radiotherapy for a brain tumour? Join our focus group to share your experiences and help shape research into long-term side effects.

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October 10th, 2025

Scanxiety- Hypnotherapy workshop for brain tumour patients and caregivers – Fri Oct 10th 2.00pm

Find out more about how hypnotherapy can help you to manage scanxiety when living with a brain tumour.

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October 10th, 2025

Living with a low grade glioma – Fri 10th Oct 1.00pm

Living with a low grade glioma isn’t straightforward. Join us to hear how we all manage the uncertainty of living with a LGG diagnosis.

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October 15th, 2025

Scanxiety- (Repeat Session), Hypnotherapy workshop for brain tumour patients Weds Oct 15th 3.00pm

Find out more about how hypnotherapy can help you to manage scanxiety when living with a brain tumour.

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October 17th, 2025

Acoustic Neuroma (Vestibular Schwannoma) Group – October Online Meetup Fri Oct 17th 1.00pm

A welcoming monthly online space for anyone affected by an acoustic neuroma.

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October 22nd, 2025

Brainstrust Bereavement Community – October 22nd 7.00pm

The grieving process begins at the time of diagnosis. We know that a death caused by a brain tumour is different. Come and be less alone.  

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October 22nd, 2025

While I Wait- Hypnotherapy workshop – Weds Oct 22nd 3.00pm

Join this session to learn how hypnotherapy can support you doing periods of waiting when you are living with a brain tumour.

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October 24th, 2025

Colloid Cyst Community – Online Meetup Oct 24th 1.00pm

A relaxed virtual cuppa and chat for anyone affected by a colloid cyst – patients, carers, and families.  

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October 24th, 2025

High grade knowledge share – Fri October 24th 11.00am

Living with a high grade glioma and want to know how others have approached treatment options? Then this is the space to find out.  

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October 29th, 2025

Calmness and confidence- Hypnotherapy workshop Oct 29th 7.00pm

An extra dose of steadiness when you need it most.

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November 16th, 2025

Run Alton Towers 2025

Join team brainstrust’s mission to help people with a brain tumour at the fun for all the family Run Alton Towers event.  Choose between the 5km, 10km or Half Marathon distance.  Not only do all finishers get a fantastic medal but entry to the park is also included as part of your race entry fee.  So […]

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November 30th, 2025

brainstrust Bass Belle 10 miler 2025

        Back for an 11th time, the sell out brainstrust Bass Belle 10 miler! Flat and fast, the brainstrust Bass Belle 10 Miler is ideal for those chasing a PB.  The route takes you around the picturesque local villages of South Cambridgeshire, consisting of 8.5 miles on road and 1.5 miles off road, offering […]

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December 3rd, 2025

Santa in the City 5k (Wed)

Join brainstrust’s mission to help those with a brain tumour at Santa in the City 5km 2025. Your Santa Run will begin at 7:00 pm the 4.5km route starting in Paternoster Square just by the majestic St Paul’s Cathedral. You will then run along the North bank where there will be fantastic river views, before crossing […]

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December 4th, 2025

Santa in the City 5km (Thursday)

Join brainstrust’s mission to help people with a brain tumour at the Santa in the City 5km. Our Santa Run will begin at 7:00 pm the 4.5km route starting in Paternoster Square just by the majestic St Paul’s Cathedral. You will then run along the North bank where there will be fantastic river views, before crossing […]

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December 6th, 2025

Santa in the City 5km 2025 Tunbridge Wells (Saturday)

Join team brainstrust’s mission to help those with a brain tumour at the Santa in The City Tunbridge Wells 5km. Starting at Grosvenor & Hilbert Park, run the 3km festive fun run on 06 December 2025 at 3pm. Santa in the City is the perfect way to get you, your friends, and your family into the Tunbridge […]

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February 15th, 2026

Barcelona Half Marathon 2026

Join team brainstrust’s mission to help people with a brain tumour at the Barcelona Half Marathon. The half-marathon in Barcelona, also known as the Mitja Marató de Barcelona, is held every February. It’s the second largest running event in Barcelona next to the Marathon. The route takes the runners from the Arc de Triomf, by […]

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March 8th, 2026

Cambridge Half Marathon 2026

Join team brainstrust as we take on the 2026 Cambridge Half Marathon for people with a brain tumour. This flat and fast course starts and finishes on Victoria Avenue in the centre of Cambridge with Midsummer Common as the event site. The route has been updated for 2025 and will now take you through the private grounds […]

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March 8th, 2026

Paris Half Marathon 2026

Join team brainstrust’s mission to help people with a brain tumour at the Paris Half Marathon. The Paris Half Marathon is one of the best overseas half marathons for UK runners to take part in! The World famous fashion capital ups the ante when it comes to running for charity. A vibrant atmosphere as you […]

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March 15th, 2026

Barcelona Marathon 2026

Join team brainstrust’s mission to help people with a brain tumour at the Barcelona Marathon. With very few hills or inclines, the course is very flat and fast, and suits first time runners, or those going for a PB!  The Barcelona Marathon is one of the most popular in Europe.  The course takes you through […]

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April 12th, 2026

London Landmarks Half Marathon 2026

Join team brainstrust’s mission to help all people with a brain tumour at the London Landmarks Half Marathon 2026. This hugely popular half marathon takes in the iconic Westminster Bridge and Charing Cross Road, up past Leicester Square and China Town. Adding even more world famous cultural landmarks to the route, and taking you to […]

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April 12th, 2026

Milan Marathon 2026

Join team brainstrust’s mission to help people with a brain tumour at the fantastic Milan Marathon. A fast and scenic course that runs mostly in the heart of the city, medal and jersey for all finishers, plus a state-of-the-art Running Festival that turns into a modern and engaging running fair for three days. The start […]

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April 12th, 2026

Paris Marathon 2026

Join team brainstrust’s mission to help people with a brain tumour at the world famous Paris Marathon. The Schneider Electric Marathon de Paris is now one of the biggest marathons in the world and perfectly combines a personal challenge with the chance to discover one of the world’s greatest cities. Race day will see you […]

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April 19th, 2026

Manchester Marathon 2026

Join team brainstrust’s mission to help people with a brain tumour at the fourth largest marathon in Europe. This is also the flattest major marathon with great PB potential. As with every year all finishers will get a  funky medal and other goodies!  Deadline for entries is 3rd November 2025 so reserve your place today.  

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May 17th, 2026

Essar Chester Half Marathon 2026

Join team brainstrust’s mission to help people with a brain tumour at the Essar Chester Half Marathon 2026. The Chester Half is one of the UK’s longest established and most highly regarded half marathons, starting and finishing in the historic Roman/Medieval international destination city of Chester. The fast and largely flat city and rural race route will […]

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May 17th, 2026

Hackney Half Marathon

Join team brainstrust’s mission to help people with a brain tumour at this fast, flat, PB potential half marathon. The Hackney Half sells out every year and is renowned for its festival atmosphere and fantastic crowd support.  There will be entertainment stations along the route and a festival village for you to enjoy post race. Registration closes […]

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May 23rd, 2026

Edinburgh 5k – Edinburgh Marathon Festival 2026

Join team brainstrust’s mission to help people with a brain tumour at the Edinburgh 5k 2026. Come and be part of Scotland’s BIGGEST running festival! This ever-growing festival of running is now a major event in the Scottish sporting calendar. Starting in Edinburgh, the course heads out through East Lothian offering stunning views and an unforgettable running […]

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May 23rd, 2026

Edinburgh 10k – Edinburgh Running Festival 2026

Join team brainstrust’s mission to help people with a brain tumour at the Edinburgh 10k 2026 Come and be part of Scotland’s BIGGEST running festival! This ever-growing festival of running is now a major event in the Scottish sporting calendar. Starting in Edinburgh, the course heads out through East Lothian offering stunning views and an […]

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May 24th, 2026

Edinburgh Half Marathon 2026

Join brainstrust’s mission to help people with a brain tumour at the Edinburgh Half Marathon 2026. Come and be part of Scotland’s BIGGEST running festival! This ever-growing festival of running is now a major event in the Scottish sporting calendar. Starting in Edinburgh, the course heads out through East Lothian offering stunning views and an unforgettable running […]

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May 24th, 2026

Edinburgh Marathon 2026

Join team brainstrust’s mission to help people with a brain tumour at the Edinburgh Marathon. The marathon route is one of the fastest in the UK making that elusive personal best a distinct possibility! Edinburgh Marathon joined the world’s elite road races in 2012 by becoming the first marathon in Scotland to be officially recognised […]

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September 6th, 2026

The Big Half 2026

Join team brainstrust’s mission to help people with a bran tumour at The Big Half in London this September.  With only 5 charity places available, early booking is advised! Organised by London Marathon Events, The Big Half is a vibrant, inclusive half marathon with a fun, festival atmosphere. The 13.1 mile course weaves through London from Tower Bridge […]

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Introduction

The Brain Tumour Data Dashboard lets you explore up -to-date, population level data about the brain tumours diagnosed in England between 2013 and 2015. Using the drop down menus on the left you can select different groups of patients to view in the charts below. In these charts the number of patients for every 100 diagnoses is displayed as images of people. Patients have been grouped by date of diagnosis, type of tumour, age, gender, and region in England.

For each group of patients you can explore the different routes to diagnosis, the proportion of those who received chemotherapy or radiotherapy, as well as the survival of the patients within each group. For more information about what these metrics mean please see the glossary.

How to use

  1. Select the year of diagnosis using the drop down menu.
  2. Select your patient group of interest from the four drop down menus in the following order:
    1. Tumour group
    2. Age at diagnosis
    3. Region of England
    4. Gender of patient
  3. To view a second chart to compare different groups of patients, click the ‘compare’ button.The second chart will appear below the first chart.

*Note that the tool is best used on a laptop or tablet rather than a mobile phone*

Unavailable data

Some of the data in these charts is not available.There are two main reasons for this:

  1. How the data has been grouped

If you cannot select a patient group from the drop down menus, the data is unavailable because of how the data has been organised.

Public Health England has grouped the data like a branching tree. The bottom of the tree contains all the patients with brain tumours, and then each branch divides the data by a certain characteristics, like age, or location of tumour. But the data is divided in an order, starting with location of the tumour (endocrine or brain), then by age, region, and gender. Age is at the start because it makes a bigger difference to survival rates and treatment rates than gender or region. Sometimes, after the data has been split by type of tumour and age, there is not enough data to be split again. This is because to protect patient confidentiality groups cannot contain less than 100 patients. Because some groups cannot be split further, you cannot create ‘totals’ for everyone by region or gender. For example, you cannot see results for all ages by region, or all brain tumours by gender. If these totals were calculated and released, it might be possible to identify patients, which is why Public Health England cannot release this data.

  1. Statistical reasons and data availability

If you can select a patient group from the chart menus, but the chart does not display, the data is unavailable for one of several reasons:

  1. Data is not yet available for the selected year from Public Health England.
  2. Data is not available because the data quality is too poor to release this statistic.
  3. Data is not available as the statistic is not appropriate for this group.
  4. Data is not available because the standard error of the estimate was greater than 20% and so the estimate has been supressed.

Up to date brain tumour data

Brain tumour data may influence the decisions you make about your care. Data also helps you understand the bigger picture, or landscape, in which you find yourself.

Brain tumour data and statistics influence the focus, and work of organisations like brainstrust. The information helps us to understand the scale and impact of the problems we are setting out to solve.

This tool helps you understand the landscape in which you find yourself having been diagnosed with a brain tumour. This landscape can be particularly tricky to navigate as there are many different types of brain tumour, all of which have a different impact.

The information you see represents the most up-to-date, official, population level brain tumour data available for England. Over time we will be adding to the brain tumour data available and publishing reports, with recommendations, as a result of what we learn from this data.

The data behind this content has come from Public Health England’s National Cancer Registration and Analysis Service (NCRAS) and is a direct result of the ‘Get Data Out’ project.

This project provides anonymised population level brain tumour data for public use in the form of standard output tables, accessible here: http://cancerdata.nhs.uk/standardoutput

Incidence

The number or rate (per head of population) of new cases of a disease diagnosed in a given population during a specified time period (usually a calendar year). The crude rate is the total number of cases divided by the mid-year population, usually expressed per 100,000 population.

Malignant

Malignant tumours which grow by invasion into surrounding tissues and have the ability to metastasise to distant sites

Mortality

The number or rate (per head of population) of deaths in a given population during a specified time period (usually a calendar year). The crude rate is the total number of deaths divided by the mid-year population, usually expressed per 100,000 population.

Non-malignant

Not cancerousNon-malignant tumours may grow larger but do not spread to other parts of the body.

Survival

The length of time from the date of diagnosis for a disease, such as cancer, that patients diagnosed with the disease are still alive. In a clinical trial, measuring the survival is one way to see how well a new treatment works. Also called ‘overall survival’ or ‘OS’.

Routes to Diagnosis

Under the ‘Routes to Diagnosis’ tab in the Brain Tumour Data Dashboard, you can explore the ways patients have been diagnosed with brain tumours. There are many ways, or routes, for cancers to be diagnosed in the NHS. A ‘route to diagnosis’ is the series of events between a patient and the healthcare system that leads to a diagnosis of cancer. The routes include:

  1. Two Week Wait

Patients are urgently referred by their GP for suspected cancer via the Two Week Wait system and are seen by a specialist within 2 weeks where they are diagnosed.

  1. GP referral

Diagnosis via a GP referral includes routine and urgent referrals where the patient was not referred under the Two Week Wait system.

  1. Emergency Presentation

Cancers can be diagnosed via emergency situations such as via A&E, emergency GP referral, emergency transfer or emergency admission.

  1. Outpatient

Outpatient cancer diagnoses include diagnoses via an elective route which started with an outpatient appointment that is either a self-referral or consultant to consultant referral. (It does not include those under the Two Week Wait referral system).

  1. Inpatient elective

Diagnosis via an inpatient elective route is where diagnosis occurs after the patient has been admitted into secondary care from a waiting list, or where the admission is booked or planned.

  1. Death Certificate Only

Diagnoses made by Death Certificate Only are made where there is no more information about the cancer diagnosis other than the cancer related death notifications. The date of diagnosis is the same as that of the date of death.

  1. Unknown

For some patients with a cancer diagnosis, there is no relevant data available to understand the route to diagnosis.

 

More information

If any of the statistical terms in this section of the brainstrust website are hard to understand, we recommend looking them up here:

Cancer Research UK’s Cancer Statistics Explained

http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/health-professional/cancer-statistics/cancer-stats-explained/statistics-terminology-explained#heading-Seven

If you are looking for help understanding terms relating specifically to brain tumours, and treatment, then the brainstrust glossary is available here:

https://www.brainstrust.org.uk/advice-glossary.php