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. I’VE been working in oncology for almost half a century now and I can honestly say that never before in those years have I experienced anything what I would have described as a “national crisis”.

There have been difficulties, but when you are dealing with cancer unfortunately there always will be.

Specifically, the crisis is now in diagnosis. There are issues on the treatment side and disruptions will have meant lives lost unnecessarily.

But the acute problem is now the realisation that someone actually has cancer. We know that tens of thousands of people have missed their diagnosis and the cancer will be growing undetected. Will we be able to deal with them when they come forward?

I’m involved with plans for five new Community Diagnostic Hubs through Rutherford, one due to open soon in partnership with an NHS trust with four to follow, and getting these centres operational is an enormous task.

This is some of the most advanced diagnostic technology in the world.

It’s expensive, requires a skilled workforce to operate and takes a huge amount of planning and perfect delivery.

We need a national effort to provide the level of infrastructure required.

Having the state-of-the-art equipment is all well and good but any machine needs a qualified and skilled operator to properly use it. There are shortages across the country and that is a problem that will be with us for many years.

As I keep saying, when the Government is spending billions and billions on mass testing and other questionable schemes where the benefits are so unclear, would that money not be better spent on properly investing in cancer services in our country?

For me, the answer is obvious.

The UK’s cancer survival rates were behind many similar countries, even before the pandemic. We are now facing more than just one public health crisis.