Survivors of breast cancer ‘let down all the way’

WOMEN who believe they have overcome breast cancer are being failed “every step of the way” when they experience symptoms of the disease coming back, a damning report has found.

The study, for the charity Breast Cancer Care, said some women had their concerns ignored by their GP for months, with a fifth given treatment for something else.

The charity also heard from women who were given months of physiotherapy or painkillers instead of investigations for cancer, and women being first told they have advanced breast cancer in A&E.

The new report says thousands of patients with incurable breast cancer across England, Scotland and Wales could be receiving “secondrate care”.

The study is based on 840 women who were eventually told they have advanced, incurable breast cancer – one of the biggest of its kind.

Of these, 72 per cent had had a previous diagnosis of primary breast cancer, while 28 per cent learned they had breast cancer when it had already begun to spread to other parts of their body.

Overall, eight per cent were told the news in A&E, suggesting “some people are left struggling with uncontrolled symptoms that become so debilitating they are rushed to hospital”, the report said.

Samia al Qadhi, chief executive of Breast Cancer Care, said: “Our findings uncover the true extent of inadequate care for people with incurable breast cancer – from feeling they’re not taken seriously when they raise concerns, to facing avoidable delays to a diagnosis, or being told the news in A&E. This is absolutely unacceptable.”