King’s example shows it is time for Britain to talk about cancer
The King has done a great service in being so open about his diagnosis. Men of our age can be far too stoic for our own good, particularly when issues of our health are concerned.
Conversations will have been ignited and symptoms raised. This will undoubtedly save lives.
The full medical details around the King’s condition will remain, rightly, private for as long as he chooses.
We don’t know where the cancer is located or what the prognosis is, and rife speculation on those questions is unhelpful. We have been told it is not arising in the prostate gland.
This makes the bladder the most likely source, but we may be told more in due course. What we do know is that the cancer is very likely to have been discovered at an early stage.
This is vital. It would mean that the cancer has not yet metastasised and spread beyond the original organ in which the tumour was located.
This means that treatment is far simpler and has a far greater chance of success. As we know, however, far more cases of cancer among the general public are now being diagnosed following a visit to A&E.
This is concerning for a number of reasons, not just because in those cases the patient is clearly experiencing a significant amount of pain, but because the cancer has reached a stage where it is causing these painful symptoms.
That generally means that it’s reached stage three or four, where chances of survival are significantly reduced. I am hopeful that seeing cancer across the front pages of every newspaper will sharpen the public’s mind and ignite a desire to tackle this horrid condition with the attention that it deserves.
Just compare with the response to Covid – when the entire country was turned on its head, with vast collateral cost, in a desperate attempt to control an uncontrollable virus. We spent hundreds of billions, and in my view ended up causing far more harm than was prevented.
This is a stark mirror image to how politicians tackle cancer, where a grim acceptance appears to have set in that thousands and thousands of people will always succumb to the disease.
This is simply not the case. There is so much more that could be done on diagnosis, treatment, research, and more to drastically improve our woeful position in the international league tables of survival rates.
Perhaps the King’s openness can start a desperately needed conversation about the sorry state of British cancer care.
Where once we were world-leading, I now have international oncologist colleagues messaging me with astonishment about how far and fast Britain has fallen. We need a total overhaul of how we diagnose and treat cancer in this country.
The current malaise is costing lives every week. Around the world, cancer is no longer the death sentence it once was. We should recognise this, and use the platform that the King has so importantly provided to start a real conversation about how Britain can once again provide the care that cancer patients deserve.
I wish King Charles, and every cancer patient fighting their own battle, a full and speedy recovery.
‘We need a total overhaul of how we diagnose and treat cancer in this country’