Alarm at cancer treatment 'ageism'
Ageism in the NHS is stopping some older cancer patients getting the best treatments, a charity has warned.
Nearly half of specialist cancer medics believe that age discrimination by health professionals is resulting in older cancer patients not getting the best treatment, a poll by Macmillan Cancer Support suggests.
And 45 per cent of the 155 GPs, oncologists and specialist cancer nurses surveyed said they have dealt with a cancer patient who has been refused treatment on the grounds that they were too old.
Macmillan said the UK has some of the worst cancer survival rates in Europe for older people.
To ensure treatment decisions are not based on age alone, patients overall physical and mental wellbeing should be assessed when considering cancer treatment, the charity said.
Ciaran Devane, chief executive at Macmillan Cancer Support, said: “Health professionals’ concerns about the prevalence of age discrimination in cancer care mustn’t be ignored.
“Unless staff are given the time and training to carry out a proper assessment of a patient’s overall physical and mental wellbeing, some patients will be unfairly written-off as ‘too old’ for treatment.
“The right practical support, whether it’s transport or help with caring responsibilities must also be put in place so older people needing treatment can actually take it up.
“The number of older people (aged 65 and over) living with cancer in the UK is set to rocket in the next 20 years from 1.3 million to 4.1 million.
“Unless the barriers to timely treatment are tackled now, many older people could die unnecessarily from cancer and services will become unaffordable.”
Health secretary Jeremy Hunt said: “It is shocking and wrong to deny people treatment just because of their age, which is why we have made it illegal.
“However, we agree that more still needs to be done to improve treatment for cancer patients over 70 - which is why we worked with Macmillan on this report to understand how to address this.
“Our ambition is to be the best in Europe for cancer care and we are committed to improving survival rates. To achieve this, we are investing more than £750 million over four years to improve cancer services and outcomes.”
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Readers' comments (2)
Anonymous | 20-Dec-2012 6:56 pm
When you read this and then you read about what is happening in the NHS regarding experienced posts and services being reduced/closed altogether, I don't see how this is going to change.
I don't think it is just plain ageism, it seems to me that it is even more complex than this, it is ageism being used as a form of rationing because there just isn't enough to go around.
It isn't going to get any better until we solve the underlying problem of our funding crisis as there has to be some way of making these hard decisions and rightly or wrongly, age will be a factor.
Faced with someone younger with a perceived greater life expectancy or someone older with a perceived lower life expectancy, I can see how this is happening and anyone who doesn't acknowledge this is being extremely niave.
These comments are not however, an endorsement of this practice. It makes me extremely sad to think that this is the society I am growing old in.
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Sheena Asthana | 20-Dec-2012 8:19 pm
I think you hit the nail on the head. I can totally see how an individual clinician may well decide to prioritise treatment for a younger person. As a youngish someone who is hurtling through the adventure of having breast cancer - wih five youngish children - I'm extremely grateful for the excellent care I've received.
But clinicians make decisions within a funding context - which currently discriminates against areas with older populations and higher morbidity loads. It is this institutionalisation of ageism that constrains clinical decision making.
I would guess that older people in generously resourced areas fare far better than older people in areas that, due to technical flaws in resource allocation formulae have been chronically under resourced. The insanities of funding - and the postcode lottery they produce - is what needs to be addressed.
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