Time-pressed doctors failing to give clear cancer diagnoses

PATIENTS are being told they have cancer without doctors having enough time to properly explain their devastating diagnosis, a new report suggests.

A survey of more than 70,000 cancer sufferers found one in four was left without a clear understanding of their situation after being given the news.

In some cases, patients said they did not know that their disease was untreatable until hospital notes were sent to them in error.

Half of patients said they were not fully told about the potential future side effects of treatment, the analysis by Macmillan Cancer Support found.

Dany Bell, the charity’s specialist adviser on treatment and recovery, said: “It is simply not good enough that people are being given a devastating diagnosis and then left feeling unprepared to deal with it. Knowledge is power and we’re told day in, day out by those with cancer that they’d feel more in control if they knew what was happening and what they might have to face.”

The charity said patients should be provided with easy-to-understand written information about their disease, given the difficulties of taking in information at the point of diagnosis.

In total, 28 per cent of those surveyed did not receive such leaflets.

Charity Bagwell, 29, from Torquay, whose mother, Valerie, died in December 2014 from pancreatic cancer, said: “Mum had been in hospital because of a tumour but her condition was never explained fully. It was only when she came home and her discharge notes were sent to her accidentally that she read she had untreatable pancreatic cancer.

“She was at home, so by the time she realised the situation she didn’t have a doctor on hand to talk to about her fears and what would happen next.”