THE POSITIVE PROFESSOR

SOCIAL media’s voice of calm Karol Sikora has been signed up by the Daily Express. Readers can now enjoy his soothing advice in these troubled times that have won him

hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter. If you need reassuring everything’s going to be all right read Professor Positivity. TODAY is World Cancer Day, a significant date in the calendar for many in the cancer community. It was created by the Union for International Cancer Control in 2000 and has brought people together over the years to tackle this awful disease.

I spent years through my work at the WHO travelling to some of the poorest countries in the world to help them advance their cancer care.

When we are through this pandemic, I sincerely hope we can all do more to share our resources and knowledge with these places. We are so fortunate to have access to the level of healthcare that we do in the UK, and we should never take that for granted.

This year it feels more poignant than most with cancer patients having suffered so much in the last 12 months.

I made my concerns clear that we could not let Covid-19 overshadow our efforts to keep diagnosing and treating cancer. Sadly, it has had a huge negative impact.

The situation is far better than it was in the first lockdown though and a large part of that is down to public pressure.

By continuing to talk about it we are raising awareness and that has encouraged people to come forward and get symptoms checked.

World Cancer Day is a special time for me as it’s also Rutherford Health’s birthday. We’ve spent six years working hard to bring state-of-the-art treatment to the UK and it’s been great to now have proton beam therapy across the country.

Our fourth centre is now operational in Liverpool with a new state-of-the-art precision radiotherapy system up and running. I’m very proud of the team that has made all of this possible.

My main message will continue to be: If you have any worrying symptoms, get them checked!