Making quality count

Less than one minute read time.

As part of Macmillan’s policy team I am working to make sure the NHS provide improvements in cancer care. This has its difficulties as they amount of money available to spend on cancer is not going up as much as we would like. Although we are fighting this we have to work with the reality, so we want to give some suggestions to the government of why giving good care saves them money. Have any of you got examples of how, by getting the support or information you needed, this actually saved the NHS money? If so we would love to hear about it so we can use it in our discussions with the NHS and government.

Anonymous
  • FormerMember
    FormerMember

    A number of mesothelioma patients have been to Germany at their own expense for the new chemoemolisation treatment.  Patients suffering other types of cancer are paying for PSD treatment.  New and more effective treatments are out there,  and in many cases the cost to the NHS would be less than for what is currently offer.  It seems there is a lack of will to consider inovatory treatment from the medical profession, oncologists in particular.  The only research currently into mesothelioma is a statistical review of where patients might have been exposed to asbestos.  Absurd when the cancer takes up to forty years to develop!  The money wasted on this project would be much better spent on evaluating new treatments being sucessfully used elsewhere in the world.

    Our experience of the German system is that a much more efficient use is made of resourses. Scans consultations and treatments are all programmed to be done on the same day. A much better use of resources, and reduced stress levels for patients.  

  • FormerMember
    FormerMember

    Thanks Daffie, you have made some good points. It is realy useful to get your experiances, I will use this one in one of our disussions soon!