WEDNESDAY 21 JUNE 2000

MR FRED WALKER

  581. I now call Mr Fred Walker of the Castleford and District Cancer Self Help Group.

  (Mr Walker) Thank you Chairman. Firstly, ladies and gentlemen, may I take this opportunity to express my gratitude to the Committee for allowing me to appear before them today. In my statement to you I have expressed my background and where I am coming from. Today, suffice for me to say that I was diagnosed with cancer in 1983. After having my bladder and a kidney out and an intensive course of chemotherapy I have been involved with cancer patients and their carers ever since. Awareness throughout the years is our main concern. We are all potential patients and are not being made aware at an early age of what can go wrong with our bodies through ignorance and lack of knowledge. We believe we should be made aware of what can and quite often does go wrong with our bodies later on in our lives. In many cases, in our opinion, this could have been prevented, especially testicular cancer, through self-examination. Many people who have had diagnosis of cancer, felt that had their GPs checked for cancer first then their prognosis might not have been as bad and many lives could have been saved. On prostate cancer, if I could take you on to that, I should like to bring to your attention the research or perhaps lack of it. Statistics prove that there are many more men dying with prostate cancer than there are women dying with breast cancer and yet more money is going into research into breast cancer. I have not come here today to have a go at the ladies. We believe that in our opinion it should be applauded because they have made their concerns known to anybody and everybody who would listen. Men, for whatever reasons, have not done the same. We are told "Big boys don't cry". They also felt if they went to their GP, as the main breadwinner in the family perhaps many hardships would be caused because they would have to stop work. Unfortunately as a result of not going to the GPs, many of them die. Where do we start? After many discussions and many conferences with many cancer patients and carers since 1983 here are some of my and their suggestions. Many of them as recently as Thursday, Friday and Saturday and Sunday of last week at the National Conference of Cancer Self Help Groups, where we run workshops, many of them on men's cancers. We believe we should take the awareness campaigns into schools as part of the curriculum, the sooner the better. Take the awareness into places frequented by men and boys, examples being football grounds, to use football programmes to advertise it, into the local pubs, the working men's clubs, the gents toilets, the lists are endless. Well-persons' clinics. Where I live in West Yorkshire many well-women's clinics; very few well-men's clinics. Perhaps I am suggesting to you that we should have well-persons' clinics to allocate some time for men. Perhaps that could be monitored by community health councils, perhaps we should be going to men's gymnasiums advocating awareness. Sponsorship came out at one of our workshops for men's cancers and it was suggested perhaps manufacturers of toilet paper. What a good idea. Complementary therapies, yes. Over the years I have seen the quality of life improve not only of hundreds but perhaps thousands of people who have been diagnosed with cancer as a result of using complementary therapies. As a result of that the quality of the life of the people who have cared for them has also been dramatically improved upon. I therefore submit to the Committee that complementary therapies should be adequately resourced, funded and perhaps monitored where you feel it necessary. In conclusion, if we are sincere in taking a fresh look at research into cancer services, all my colleagues without exception and I are all of the same opinion: where committees are being set up to discuss funding and research we are of the opinion that these committees should include people who have been diagnosed with cancer and perhaps their carers at all levels of decision making and not just as a tokenistic gesture. Adequate resources and funding should be made available for training, for writing reports and to help them overcome and understand the jargon which is so often used. May I thank you all very much for listening?

  Chairman: Thank you very much indeed for a most impressive piece of evidence.

  582. You mentioned breast cancer versus prostate cancer and that the amount of money is in reverse proportion to the number of deaths. How should we decide in the cancer budget how much goes to breast cancer, how much to prostate, how much to bladder and whatever?
  (Mr Walker) Perhaps we need to involve community health councils more. I have been involved with the community health council in the Pontefract area for the last eight years, not only as a member but as a Vice-Chair and Chair visiting hospitals and seeing some of the shortfalls in the hospitals because people have not been diagnosed early enough with prostate cancer. Make men aware of how to get themselves diagnosed, how to get to the hospitals, what the symptoms are, what to look out for and things like this. Ladies do that amongst ladies. We need the ladies perhaps to kick us men up the backside to go to the doctor. I hope I have answered your question.

  Chairman: I come from the Nottinghamshire/Yorkshire borders and I think you have answered in a good Yorkshire way and thank you very much indeed for it. Thank you for your evidence.