Our Mission

Despite a protracted illness and escalating symptoms, she was 'reassured' by her GP practice that she had Long Covid (despite no positive test) and that she was 'too young for cancer'.

Jess was forced to resort to a private self-referral to see a specialist. Tragically, it was too late and she died just 3 weeks later. She was 27 years old.

Jess' symptoms were a ‘red flag’ and should have triggered concern.

During her time in hospital, Jess talked a lot about raising awareness and changing things for others. 

We have created the Jessica Brady CEDAR Trust as Jess’ legacy. Our mission is to improve GP awareness and diagnosis of cancer. 

Currently only 54% of cancers are diagnosed at stage 1 or 2. It is imperative this improves for everyone, including young people. According to Cancer Research UK, if bowel cancer is diagnosed at Stage 1, there is 90% chance of survival for five years or more following diagnosis. If diagnosed at Stage 4, this is reduced to just 10%.

The weight of responsibility in achieving earlier diagnosis lies in the hands of General Practice Doctors.

Jessica Brady CEDAR Trust is working closely with The Department of Health and Social Care, NHS England and The Royal College of General Practitioners. We had the opportunity to read and comment on initial drafts of NHS England’s Primary Care Patient Safety Strategy, published in September 2024.

In February 2025, an e-learning training course, we part funded, for General Practice doctors was launched. The module entitled “Early diagnosis of cancer in young adults” explores the epidemiology of cancer in young adults, risk factors and the clinical aspects of a timely diagnosis. This training module has been devised and created by the Royal College of General Practitioners. We have funded this resource to make it freely available to all GPs and other healthcare professionals registered with the RCGP's learning platform.

We have created a 30 minute training module entitled “Jess’s Rule: What it means for Primary Care Clinicians​”. Endorsed by both NHS England and DHSC it provides invaluable training.

Click here to view Jess's Rule: What it means for Primary care Clinicians.

Please do not hesitate to contact us should you require the PowerPoint presentation of the training and corresponding speaker notes.

As a small charity we guarantee all your donations - every penny - will be spent wisely and carefully, without incurring unnecessary administrative costs.

Two trustees from the Jessica Brady Cedar Trust (Simon Brady and Carl Westmoreland) participate in a research project led by Professor Brendan Delaney (Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine). The 3-year project, which started in September 2024, is called ‘Artificial Intelligence (AI) to support cancer early diagnosis in general practice (AI-DIP)’ and aims to develop an AI 'virtual human' for use in NHS primary care.

This ‘virtual human’ could ultimately work with GPs to collect a medical history before a consultation and provide the GP with a list of possible diagnoses. Simon and Carl actively participate in different working groups of the project, providing a patient perspective and hope that this research will contribute to earlier and faster diagnosis of cancer.

For more information about this project click here.