The Cancer Research UK website has an “interview” between the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown and their Cheif Executive Harpal Kumar. You can read the interview here “PM Gordon Brown speaks exclusively to Cancer Research UK CEO Harpal Kumar“.
I’ve posted it here because I thought that you might be interested to read what Gordon Brown thinks about cancer services in the UK. Overall, I wasn’t impressed, it seems to be a glossy advert that skims over the difficulties and promotes labours new “one week turn around” on diagnostic tests. Most of the interview focuses on this, but please note, these plans apply to England only, as is made clear at the end.
A few parts of this interview bug me, for example:
“Ovarian and bowel cancer patients often present with symptoms that are not always recognised as cancer by the GP.”
The reason these cancers can be missed is because the symptoms of these cancers are very, very common in the general population and are most often caused by something other than cancer. Is there any scientific evidence that a one week wait for a colonoscopy is better than a two week wait? I don’t disagree with early diagsnosis and testing, but the NHS only has so much money and we need to make sure we spend it on things that will make a difference to peoples lifes rather than spending money to win votes.
What do you think? Am I being too cynical?
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