Tag Archives: cancer

Who cares for the carer?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7dtysE6-aA]

Who cares for the carer?

Councils must not cut charity budgets

By Adam Fleming BBC News Political Correspondent

Communities Secretary Eric Pickles
 Mr Pickles indicated he could take action against councils which overly penalise charities

 

Eric Pickles has said he is considering using the law to prevent local authorities passing on “disproportionate” cuts to charities.

The Communities Secretary told voluntary groups they were entitled to expect that cuts to their grants would not be proportionally bigger than cuts to local authority budgets overall.

One in four cancer patients ‘sent away by GPs’

One in four cancer patients ‘sent away by GPs’
One in four cancer patients with early signs of illness are being sent away by their GPs or wrongly diagnosed with minor ailments, a new report has found.
By Andrew Hough 7:00AM GMT 28 Feb 2011
1 Comment

Researchers found tens of thousands of patients are being forced to make repeated trips to their doctors before being given correct diagnosis.

Despite showing early signs of cancer, many were told there was nothing to fear and were sent home armed with advice to only take painkillers or antibiotics.

The study, published by the Rarer Cancers Foundation, concluded that a quarter of patients were only diagnosed once the disease had spread to other organs, by which time it was often terminal. Many patients told researchers how their symptoms were misinterpreted by GPs and were dismissed as minor.

Experts blamed late diagnosis for what was described as high death rates and say many tumours were spotted too late for treatment. Figures show that Britain has one of the lowest cancer survival rates in Europe despite billions of pounds in treatment investment.

The Office for National Statistics recently found that the cancer death rate among British women was higher than in countries such as France, Italy and Portugal

Britain has national screening programmes for only three types of cancer: cervical, bowel and breast cancer. Tests are not yet accurate enough for other forms of the disease.