Cancer Care in West, North and East Cumbria

The Cumbria Health Scrutiny meeting on Tuesday 26th Februry received a very important report and presentation on cancer care in the Northern part of the county (including West and East Cumbria.)

You can read the report here.

The report included

1) Details of the current issues around health outcomes for those who suffer from cancer in the northern two-thirds of Cumbria

2) Information on the alarming levels of health inequalities - people in parts of the county have much better chances of surviving cancer for longer and with less devastating consequences.

3) A large part of this is due to issues of lifestyle and also to how quickly people go to their doctor when they have a problem - one of the causes of differential outcomes is that people in the areas with better survival rates tend to present at an earlier stage of the onset of the disease when there is more chance of doing something about it. Similarly, some is due to higher take-up of screening programmes.

4) The report discussed some of the measures being taken to improve take-up of cancer screening. It cannot be stressed too strongly, if you are offered a cancer test, it may save your life to take it up.

5) The report also discussed the new cancer centre at Carlisle. This very welcome new facility is not being provided at the expense of cancer services in the West of the county and we discussed at the meeting how cancer services in the West are being improved too.