A lot has happened in our lives since my brain surgery last August, not least being the recurrence of my wife’s breast cancer, which understandably has had a terrific impact on our lives.

We did not expect it to return within a year of treatment.

She is now on another tougher course of chemotherapy, which should be finished by the spring.

It came as a great surprise to receive a phone call, before Christmas, advising me that I was to be awarded an MBE. At first I thought it a wind up, and the poor guy at the other end of the line had to spend some time convincing me that this was indeed genuine.

I feel very proud but it does strike me as ironic to receive such an award from the establishment when I have dedicated so much of my time in challenging NHS decisions in an effort to improve the lot of patients.

At least we now have two first line drugs for kidney cancer where there was none before.

With the help of the Cancer Drugs Fund even more patients should be able to access life extending drugs.

I am proud of this but still feel a terrific sense of sadness for all those patients for whom these benefits have come too late.

Much mention has been made recently of David Cameron’s Big Society, which has been criticised by some as merely a distraction to take our attention away from all the spending cuts about to hit us.

However, I agree that we should all take more personal responsibility and contribute, where able, to the common good. I can readily see the benefits of more inclusive communities. Perhaps it should have been launched under the banner of Caring Communities.

I am pleased to say that this ethos can be seen in our own local support group, Friends of Renal Oncology Cancer Group (FROG), which is the largest such group in the country and now supports 45 patients plus families.

We are merely a group of patients with the same illness in common who derive valuable mutual support from the group. We are entirely independent and receive no assistance or support whatsoever from the NHS.

We are just about to celebrate our third anniversary. Despite all our efforts, it is frustrating to read a report from a leading cancer specialist saying that the much-heralded Cancer Drugs Fund appears to be in a mess. Our own South Central SHA, which includes Oxfordshire PCT, has only committed £189,000 of its £3.4m budget on 39 patients, and as of December 31, it had received 52 applications.

This comes as no surprise as we have been trying to monitor the effectiveness of the Fund by way of Freedom of Information enquiries from the SHAs. Many appear to be doing their own thing with patients still expected to jump too many hurdles just to obtain drugs recommended by our clinicians, which is contrary to the expectations and spirit of the scheme.