Category Archives: Cancer

Toyah Willcox heartbreaking story of her beloved mum

March 25, 2013   Cancer, Carers, Liverpool Care Pathway

Toyah Willcox: Doctors put my mother on ‘death pathway’ without telling me

Toyah Willcox, the singer and actress, has spoken of her shock at learning that doctors had placed her elderly mother on the controversial Liverpool Care Pathway.

Toyah Willcox, the singer and actress Photo: ROGER TAYLOR

7:09AM GMT 25 Mar 2013

Miss Willcox said she was not consulted about the decision to withdraw life–saving treatment.

She said she overheard a nurse tell her 81-year-old mother: “It’s all right Barbara, the end is near.”

The singer said she had wanted to support her mother when she was told she was being put on the Liverpool Care Pathway, which involves withdrawing invasive treatments or tests from patients in their final days and hours in order to ease their suffering.

Her mother, who had been suffering from cancer, died in her sleep in September 2011, a week after being admitted to St Richard’s Hospice in Worcester.

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Patients and carers will get more help

March 18, 2013   Cancer, Carers, Depression, Diabetes, disability, health

Thousands of patients with long-term conditions and dementia could benefit as GP contract proposals are unveiled

March 18, 2013

Thousands more patients will soon feel the benefits of better care at their GP surgery as an ambitious vision to improve the lives of people with long term conditions and people with dementia becomes a reality.

From April, changes to the GP contract, which have been announced today, will see millions of pounds redirected into better care for patients.

Money that was once given to doctors for performing routine office functions like record keeping will now be used to reward steps which directly support and benefit patients. This includes better control of blood pressure and cholesterol, to prevent heart attacks and stroke, and assessing patients at risk from dementia.

In total, £164 million will be pulled away from bureaucratic box ticking exercises and into better care.

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A Warning about eating too much meat!

February 4, 2013   Cancer, Carers, health

World Cancer Day: How meat can be murder

Warnings are now added to cigarettes, but what about meat consumption?

Monday 4 February 2013

Today is World Cancer Day.

When you consider the efforts to fight cancer, the image that most readily springs to mind might be the graphic warning labels added to cigarette packets sold in the UK and other countries, which have helped curb smoking and its associated health risks. Similar warnings should be placed on meat and dairy products for the same reason. Unlike foods from plants that enhance our health, meat and dairy products have the same hazards as cigarette smoking, including increased risks of strokes, heart disease and cancer.

According to Cancer Research statistics, nearly 425,000 cases of cancer were diagnosed across the UK in 2010, the most recent year of complete statistics – and more than 150,000 Britons died from the disease that same year. The World Health Organisation has determined that dietary factors account for at least 30 per cent of all cancer in Western countries and up to 20 per cent in developing countries.

Processed meat, such as bacon, sausage, ham, and the like, is so strongly linked with bowel cancer – the second-largest cause of cancer death in the UK – that no one should ever eat it, according to a recent report by the World Cancer Research Fund and the American Institute for Cancer Research, based on a systematic review of more than 1,000 papers on bowel cancer carried out at Imperial College London.

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