Alarm at cancer treatment 'ageism'

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.”