Think Tank participants agree education is crucial to tackle taboo subject
The UK must introduce measures to improve public understanding of cancer care according to delegates at this month's COVER Think Tank.
Professor Hilary Thomas, group medical director at Care UK, said the key issues were on public education, recognition of early signs of disease and understanding about risk factors in their lifestyle. "As a country we are far behind European countries in that respect," she added.
Also at the Think Tank, Alex Bennett, head of healthcare consulting at Aon Consulting, insisted however that there had been a shift in emphasis towards better education and understanding of wellness issues.
Doctor Teresa Tate, medical adviser at Marie Curie, said the public needed information but could only take so much on board: "People do not want to think about healthcare until they need it."
She added it needed to be easily available to people as and when it was required. "Information needs to be in a whole lot of different media, written and the web so different groups can access things in different ways. We have to remember that we have a multicultural country and providing written information in 49 different languages does not solve the problem," Tate said.
Agreeing, Chris Oakland, senior healthcare adviser at Gissings Advisory Services, said it was important to have a system that provided more education and information. Employers have a direct interest in making sure their staff have access to information and engaging them to make healthy lifestyle decisions, he added.
In addition to being far behind European countries in terms of education, Professor Karol Sikora, medical director at CancerPartnersUK, said the state of cancer care in this country was dreadful. "If you take Europe as the benchmark, the equivalent in terms of the amount spent on healthcare and the amount spent on cancer treatment, we get less for our pound," he added.
It was documented that wealthy countries such as Germany, France, Italy and Sweden have a higher number of cancer sufferers but the best survival rates. In contrast, Britain had a relatively low incidence of cancer compared to its European neighbours but was more in common with the former Eastern block in terms of survival.
- For full coverage of the debate please see the Think Tank supplement included in this month's issue.
